On December 5, Zhoghovurd daily published a document according to which Hayk Marutyan did not cease to be the director of Two and a Half Company after becoming mayor in violation of the law.

Today, it became known that the Corruption Prevention Commission has filed a lawsuit against Mayor Hayk Marutyan on the grounds of allegedly violating incompatibility requirements.

The mayor’s spokesperson Hakob Karapetyan denied the newspaper’s claims, saying that Marutyan had ceased to be the company’s director since October 10, 2018. He also published Marutyan’s dismissal document which was signed by the company’s shareholder.

The article in Zhoghovurd was based on an extract from the State Register of Legal Entities. The statement was downloaded in November 2019, and Hayk Marutyan was truly mentioned as the director.

Media.am also downloaded a statement about the Two and a Half company. However, the details of the documents we received differ from those presented by Zhoghovurd daily.

Zhoghovurd daily had presented an old statement claiming that it is new

Information from different years can be downloaded from the State Register website. Excerpts from Two and a Half LLC are available from 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018 and 2019.

Zhoghovurd has downloaded the 2012 statement, though at the time of publication, the most recent excerpt available was the one from 2018. The newspaper did not mention that its excerpt was seven years old. In 2012, Hayk Marutyan was indeed the director of that company, but he was not the mayor.

2012 excerpt which was presented by Zhoghovurd daily

Moreover, the newspaper has tried to give the impression that the statement is new. The article’s author claimed that “the document clearly shows that the information was downloaded by 2019-11-27 and that Marutyan is still the director of the company as of that day.”

When downloading any statutory document from the State Registry website, the date of downloading is indicated, which is not related to the date the document was made.

Fresh extracts show that Marutyan is not the director

In the most recent extract from 2019, it can be seen that on November 3, 2018, the company director was replaced and Arman Marutyan’s brother was mentioned as the director. This confirms the statement of the mayor’s spokesman.

2019 Excerpt downloaded on December 24

The new statement also shows that two and a half weeks ago the company began the process of liquidation.

Zhoghovurd daily had bypassed the freshest information available to them and presented an old statement as something new. Therefore, the accusation made by the newspaper is false.

Karine Ghazaryan