I don’t think anyone in Armenia can blackmail citizens, villagers or the government of Armenia. This is a very bad working style. This is what Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan told journalists at the National Assembly on 8 April, touching upon the concerns that remanding the director of Spayka LLC might detriment purveyance.

“This means that a certain company can pose threats to villagers just because the government is asking them to pay taxes or pay the taxes it hasn’t paid. What is this?” Pashinyan said.

On 8 April, Judge Karen Farkhoyan of the Court of General Jurisdiction of Yerevan rendered a decision to uphold the motion of the Investigative Department of the State Revenue Committee and remand director of Spayka LLC Davit Ghazaryan for two months.

Within the scope of the criminal case instituted in relation to the case of failure to pay taxes in particularly large amounts, on 4 April 2019, Ghazaryan was charged under the elements of part 2 of Article 205 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia (failure to pay a tax, duty or other mandatory fee in particularly large amounts).

According to the press release of the State Revenue Committee, Spayka LLC has not paid the AMD 7,036,666,312 customs duty and tax resulting from entrepreneurial activities.

The employees of Spayka LLC have come out to the streets to protest against the director’s remand.