Court Imposes 9 Million Dram Restraint on Journalist's Property: Hetq

Yerevan Deputy Mayor and former Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Avinyan has requested the Yerevan General Jurisdiction Civil Court to impose a 9 million dram restraint on the property of the "168 Hours" media outlet and journalist Davit Sargsyan. Sargsyan discovered the restraint unexpectedly when he was unable to pay his utility bills from his salary account yesterday.

In an interview with Hetq, Davit Sargsyan confirmed that the 9 million dram restraint had been placed on the account from which he receives his salary. Tigran Avinyan filed a lawsuit against "168 Hours" LLC and journalist Davit Sargsyan on March 31, 2023. He demands that the journalist and the media outlet apologize, retract damaging information about his honor, dignity, and business reputation, and pay a monetary compensation of 9 million drams, consisting of 3 million for defamation and 6 million for libel.

This case has been assigned to Judge Eduard Amalyan, who is the son of Grigor Amalyan, the former chairman of the National Commission on Television and Radio. It is noteworthy that during G. Amalyan's tenure, the "A1+" media outlet was deprived of its broadcasting license.

On May 2, the court decided to accept the lawsuit for consideration. On the same day, Avinyan's request was granted, and a restraint in the amount of the claim was imposed on the property belonging to Davit Sargsyan and the media outlet.

On February 25, 2023, an episode of Davit Sargsyan's authored program "Two Faces" was published on 168.am and the website's YouTube channel. The video titled "Tigran Avinyan - The Newly Revealed Wealthy Man" related to Tigran Avinyan. In the video, the journalist presented excerpts from Avinyan's interviews and information from other publications about the deputy mayor and his family's, friends' businesses, connections, and properties.

Avinyan has also filed lawsuits against two other media outlets this year: on March 16 against "Factinfo" LLC and on April 13 against "Oragir Media" LLC. The deputy mayor demands that "Factinfo" retract damaging information regarding his honor, dignity, and business reputation, as well as pay 6 million drams in monetary compensation. In this case, he also requested the application of protective measures and the imposition of a restraint on the media's property, but Judge Yerem Yesoyan rejected the request.

From "Oragir Media" LLC, Avinyan similarly demands retractions for information damaging to his reputation and monetary compensation. This case has been assigned to Judge Murad Hovakimyan. There is no information on the Datalex information portal regarding the acceptance of this lawsuit for consideration. Based on the amount of the paid tax, we can infer that the claim again demands 6 million drams in compensation. However, it is unknown whether protective measures have been applied in this case.

It should be noted that the amount of damages demanded is the maximum prescribed by law. In 2021, a change to the Civil Code was introduced at the initiative of then-Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan. Simonyan sought to set a maximum compensation of up to 10 million drams for libel and 5 million drams for defamation. However, the National Assembly took a more modest stance regarding the compensation amounts. According to the accepted amendment, the threshold for defamation compensation increased from 1 million drams to 3 million drams, while the maximum for libel increased from 2 million drams to 6 million drams.

Tigran Avinyan's representative, lawyer Harutyun Harutyunyan, stated in an interview with us that they requested the protective measure after discussions with their client. According to Harutyunyan, the demand for 9 million drams relates to both the media outlet and the journalist, meaning that each is required to pay 4.5 million drams.

We asked the lawyer if it was possible to resolve the dispute out of court. In response, Harutyunyan stated that the media outlet could publish a retraction at any time, making the lawsuit moot, and in that case, he would ensure that immediate steps are taken to lift the protective measure.

"I do not exclude that we ourselves may also submit a request to have the enforcement lifted to expedite matters in terms of time," said Harutyunyan. The lawyer noted that they have requested the imposition of a restraint on the property as a protective measure. If no immovable or movable property is identified, the enforcement service effectively places a restraint on monetary resources. "I purely speculate that no other property has been identified, and a restraint has been placed on monetary resources," the lawyer concluded.

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