ArmInfo. Vallex Group has not filed a lawsuit and has nothing to do with legal proceedings against Teghut CJSC, the Vallex Group statement reads.
The statement, in particular, reads: "Within the framework of the instituted legal proceedings against CJSC Teghut, in the court of general jurisdiction of Lori region, former employees of CJSC Teghut held protest actions and made statements unreasonably speculating on the name of Vallex Group. In response to this information, the company reports that it is in no way related to this legal proceeding and has not filed a lawsuit against Teghut.
It is noted that the trial, the first meeting of which took place today at the residence of Alaverdi court of general jurisdiction of Lori, was initiated on the private suit of the former General Director of "Teghut" CJSC Sahak Karapetyan. The latter requires that the decisions of the Council and the sole shareholder of JSC Teghut be recognized as invalid and unlawful, and, as a result, the restoration of the position of general director and member of the CJSC Council. "The process of reviewing the above lawsuits will in no way prevent the possible restart of the Teghut mining complex," the statement reads.
The relevant formation is available n the website of the judicial information system www.datalex.am. "According to the information of the system, which is publicly available, as a result of another trial of Teghout, also unrelated to Vallex Group, the court took measures to secure the claim related to the claim of $ 2 million by imposing a ban on actions that, again, do not relate to the possible restart of the "Teghut mining complex", Vallex Group comments. In response to the statements made, Vallex Group reports that it does not require money from Teghut. "In September 2018, when VTB Bank became the owner of Teghout shares and dismissed the general director, the balance in Teghut settlement accounts was about $ 3.5 million, and the fact that the new management of Teghut "did not in a timely manner fulfilled the obligation of only 2 million drams or $ 4 thousand, thus preventing the aggravation of the situation," Vallex Group notes.
Vallex Group was established in 1998 and unites 20 subsidiary and affiliated companies. Among them is Teghut CJSC, founded in May 2006, 100% of the shares of CJSC belong to Teghut Investments Limited of Cyprus, 100% of whose voting shares in turn belong to Armenian Copper Program CJSC, which is fully owned by Valery Mejlumyan, and also CJSC "Base Metals", operating the copper-gold deposit in the village of Drmbon, Martakert region, NKR, Armenian Copper Program CJSC (ACP), operating the Alaverdi Copper Smelter. The program for the exploitation of the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit was approved by the Armenian government in November 2007. In terms of reserves, the Tekhut deposit is the second in the republic after the Kajaran copper and molybdenum deposits in Syunik. Back in 1972, large-scale geological exploration was carried out, which resulted in confirmed reserves of 450 million tons of ore with a content of 1.6 million tons of copper and 99 thousand tons of molybdenum. The suspension of the largest Teghout project due to environmental problems at the end of last year had a negative impact on the country's economy. The operation of the field can be continued only after solving a number of technical and environmental problems, due to which the company, in fact, lost its credit support. Meanwhile, due to a serious violation of environmental regulations, since October 19, 2018, the work of the Alaverdi Copper Smelter, producing blister copper using technologies from the middle of the last century, was suspended. The problem is compounded by the fact that the property complex of the enterprise is in collateral for a loan of $ 500 million, previously obtained from VTB Bank for the development of the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit. Under these conditions, servicing a VTB loan becomes extremely unaffordable for an enterprise and a serious decline in the level of profitability of the Alaverdi plant, in fact, may lead to its bankruptcy. Meanwhile, on November 21, 2018, answering the question of ArmInfo, Garegin Baghramyan, acting Minister of Energy Infrastructures and Natural Resources of Armenia, stated that the issue of appointing a new operator for the operation of the Teghut copper-molybdenum deposit is being discussed. According to Baghramyan, the Teghout mining project was mortgaged under a loan from VTB Bank. "Today Teghut's assets have become the property of VTB and the process is underway to appoint a new field operator from the bank," the acting Head of the Ministry of Energy said. At the same time, as Bagramyan noted, he is not yet aware of the candidates who have expressed interest in the project.