Refutation: Minister of Justice is not shareholder of Concern-Dialog Law Firm

In its June 20 edition, "Zhamanak" daily newspaper covered newly appointed Minister of Justice Rustam Badasyan, stating that the minister “is a shareholder of the Concern-Dialog Law Firm owned by attorney of Robert Kocharyan, former Deputy Minister of Justice Aram Orbelyan”. The Ministry of Justice declares that Minister Badasyan is not a shareholder of the mentioned firm and does not currently have any relations with that firm since Rustam Badasyan had already sold his share in May 2018.

As far as the co-operation between the Ministry of Justice and Concern-Dialog Law Firm is concerned, let us inform that, pursuant to point 3 of the Annex to the Law “On the structure and activities of the Government”, the Ministry of Justice shall ensure protection of the interests of the Republic of Armenia in international courts with the participation of the Republic of Armenia. Pursuant to sub-point "b" of point 1 of part 2 of Decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia No 526-N of 4 May 2017 "On approving the procedure for organising of the procurement process and on repealing Decision of the Government of the Republic of Armenia No 168-N of 10 February 2011", procurement outside the territory of the Republic of Armenia shall be carried out through the procedure approved by the head of the given public administration body, where the price of a good, work or service to be procured within the scope of the given procurement procedure exceeds seventy-fold of the procurement base unit. Accordingly, a procedure for procurement of advocatory and legal services for protecting the interests of the Republic of Armenia in a specific case is approved by the order of the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia, regulating the relations pertaining to organising of the process of selection, by way of tender, of the specialised company providing advocatory and legal services, summarising the results of the tender and concluding a procurement contract with the preferred candidate. Pursuant to this procedure, a relevant commission is set up, which selects the international company that provides legal services. During 2018-2019, international companies were selected as representatives in the cases filed against the Republic of Armenia. Concern-Dialog Law Firm is a local sub-adviser in only one of those cases. Moreover, the representative of the Republic of Armenia is an international company, and local sub-advisers are introduced upon the recommendation of the latter. Thus, “Lalive” international company has been selected to provide advocatory and legal services outside the territory of the Republic of Armenia for protecting the interests of the Republic of Armenia with regard to disputes having arisen with respect to Contract No T1-T2-CW-01 concluded between the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technologies and the Corsan-Corviam Construccion S.A. construction firm, and “Lalive” international company has nominated Concern-Dialog Law Firm as a local sub-adviser.