Scandal of Armenian Telecommunications Market is Connected with Georgia as well
Another round of redistribution of the telecommunications market in neighboring Armenia is developing interestingly, and people connected with Georgia in the past have been involved in its activities.
According to a source informed from Armenia bring Banks and Finance up to date, there is a scandalous dispute between the co-owners of the largest local internet provider, Ucom.
The scandal broke out a few weeks ago. The founders of the company, brothers Hayk and Alexander Yesayan, who own about 6 percent of the shares, stated that they had come into conflict with other owners of the company. Ucom CEO and co-founder Hayk Yesayan announced his resignation as Andrey Pyatakhin, Beeline Armenia CEO was appointed by contolling stake as Director General. As a sign of solidarity with him, more than 800 employees–that is, about half of the entire staff–also resigned.
This is Andrey Pyatakhin, who headed Beeline Georgia in 2009-2011 and was forced to leave the company amid heavy allegations. At that time, the case did not reach criminal liability, but circles interested in the telecommunications business linked the "promotion" of Pyatakhin in Moscow to the large-scale and systematic illegal activities of Beeline's Georgian office.
The ongoing scandal of the Armenian Ucom was preceded by the purchase of a full package of shares of Beeline Armenia by Ucom, however, it turned out that the management of Beeline Armenia is going to continue managing the already united company.
Ucom CEO Hayk Yesayan, who owns 6% of the company with his brother, offered other shareholders to redeem the company in full, but the deal did not materialize. Eventually, the majoritarian shareholder, the new CEO A.Khachatryan has been appointed and is trying to fill the 800 vacancies that have arisen amid mass dismissals.
The main shareholders of Ucom are the children and close relatives of Gagik Khachatryan, the former head of the Armenian State Revenue Committee, who is in prison. Gurgen, Artem and Aram Khachatryans are now wanted and charged with embezzlement of hundreds of millions of dollars and other serious crimes. The arrest warrant for one of them, Gurgen Khachatryan, was issued on April 30 and is the only one of its brothers in Armenia. Others have already left the country.
In Armenia, it is practically difficult to find a person who is engaged in any commercial activity and has not been exposed to illegal actions by a representative of the Khachatryan family.
This trend seems to be continuing because the criminal clan of the Khachatryans, despite the state of emergency declared in the country due to the pandemic, tried to bring Andrey Pyatakhin, the head of the Internet provider, that was especially important during this period.
The entire technical staff is among the fired employees of Ucom. Obviously, without them the company is paralyzed. The new leadership is already trying to attract technical staff from other countries, because everyone is already shy away from cooperating with the criminal clan of the Khachatryans, which is well known in the Armenian society. It seems that due to the critical need to mobilize the technical staff, it is through Pyatakhin that triggering interest of Georgian technicians in working in the Armenian company has already started.
If the Khachatran clan manages to control Ucom, in this case, given the Georgian background of Pyatakhin, the Armenian society should expect that the best days in Armenia's largest Internet provider will not come for quite some time.