88 GROUP has issued a statement rejecting claims made about businessman Narek Nalbandyan during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s briefing, saying the allegations are untrue.
According to the company, journalist Vahe Makaryan alleged that Nalbandyan invokes the name of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in order to expand his business activities and acquire property. 88 GROUP said that claim does not correspond to reality.
The statement says Narek Nalbandyan has not used and does not use the name of any official, especially the Armenian prime minister, to gain privileges, advantages or property in the course of his business activity. The company called on Vahe Makaryan to publicly retract the information and disclose the factual basis for his statements.
88 GROUP also said the same person had published or voiced information about the Hrazdan Cement transaction which, it maintains, is likewise inaccurate.
The company said the baseless circulation of Narek Nalbandyan’s name and that of a company affiliated with him, along with the dissemination of unverified information damaging his business reputation, would not go unanswered. If no public retraction is made, 88 GROUP said it intends to go to court to seek, under the procedure established by law, a retraction of information that is untrue and harmful to business reputation, as well as other legal remedies.
The statement added that if Vahe Makaryan has evidence to support his public claims, it should be published. Otherwise, 88 GROUP is demanding that the information be withdrawn with the same degree of publicity.
On September 3, Nikol Pashinyan told reporters after a government meeting: “I have no favorite oligarch, and if there is someone in Armenia’s economic sphere who has been irritating me and our family beyond all tolerable limits, it is Narek Nalbandyan.”
He also said he had instructed the relevant law enforcement agencies to initiate proceedings. According to Pashinyan, if it is established that Narek Nalbandyan is trying to create the impression that he has ties to the prime minister’s family, he “will face a harsher fate than the other oligarchs have faced.”
