The Armenian government has changed its law firm in the lawsuit filed against it by the owners of the Electric Networks of Armenia company at the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. The respective decision was made during Thursday's Cabinet meeting of the government.

With this decision, the government replaced the Arnold & Porter law firm with the Foley Hoag LLP legal advisory firm.

The necessity of adopting the government's decision is conditioned by new circumstances that have emerged since the August 21 decision, which, in the context of the revealed conflict of interest, constitute an obstacle to cooperation with the Arnold & Porter firm in this arbitration case, based on the need to ensure the protection of Armenia's interests in the framework of both state security and other ongoing international legal proceedings with Armenia's participation, according to the explanation for this decision.

The Armenian government conditioned its aforesaid decision on the fact that the proposal submitted by Foley Hoag LLP is not inferior in quality to the proposal submitted by Arnold & Porter.

The Armenian executive branch of power added that Foley Hoag LLP is engaged in a number of other international legal processes to defend Armenia's interests and is a reliable partner.

Also, in the current situation, Foley Hoag LLP has agreed to provide services at the same price as Arnold & Porter. Last time, Foley Hoag LLP was not selected, as it had submitted a higher price offer, the government noted.

Therefore, taking into account the fact that Foley Hoag LLP will need to ensure payment from the moment of actual provision of services, even before the conclusion of the contract with it for the services to be provided, the decision is intended to apply to relations arising after August 25.

During its Cabinet meeting on August 21, the Armenian government had decided to allocate $3,250,000 to the prime minister's office of Armenia to engage the US-based law firm Arnold & Porter in this lawsuit.