The workshop on the topic of “beneficial ownership” took place in Yerevan

Today, on 8th of November, 2018, the first workshop on the “Introduction of the institute of beneficial ownership in RA” took place in Yerevan in the framework of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowship. The workshop has been conducted by Mariam Zadoyan, an Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellow and the “Introduction of the institute of beneficial ownership in RA with the aim of combatting corruption” project, Program Manager.

The workshop was mainly organized for the students of the “Anti-Corruption School for Young Leaders” and CSO’s representatives, including Armenian Lawyers’ Association, Armenian Young Lawyers’ Association and etc.

The workshop consisted of 2 parts: 1^st part was dedicated to the presentation of the “Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowships”. Mariam has encouraged all the young participants to apply for the Fellowship by representing numerous opportunities provided by the program. “When I saw the call for applications for the first time, I could never imagine that I can be a part of this elite community”. She presented the criteria foreseen for the fellows, the procedure and other necessary points for applying for the fellowships. Participants were very active asking questions. In a response, Mariam mentioned, that not only anti-corruption projects are eligible but a variety of other sectors by bringing examples of projects implemented by other both national and international fellows.

Afterwards, the next part of the workshop followed. Firstly, Mariam talked about the situation in Armenia concerning high level of corruption, affiliation of political powers and businesses and the presence of “de facto” monopolies. She told that a new concept has been introduced by international community with the aim of combatting corruption and money laundering. The concept is about “beneficial owners”, that is the ultimate owners of the companies whose names, in most of the cases, even do not figurate in the companies documents.

Then Mariam continued by presenting Armenia’s already existing legal rules on the concept. The latter includes the banking legislation, mining legislation and the legislation on public procurement, mainly the “RA Law on “Public Procurement” has been recently changed and due to efforts of the CSOs Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia, where Mariam is an expert, it is mandatory for the winner of the bid to represent information on its beneficial owners. Otherwise, the state want sign a contract with the company.

However, Mariam explained, that this is not enough to insure free economic competition in the country as it covers only selected cases and spoke about the need of establishing a registry of beneficial owners and posing a duty on the companies to provide information on their beneficial physical owners to the register. She presented the international best practices on this issue. Mainly, the EU has corresponding directives imposing on its members to create beneficial ownership registries in their countries and collecting all that data in a unified EU register of beneficial owners. Here Mariam told that she is very proud that Armenia is one of the first countries who has partially introduced the concept. She added. “We don’t need to wait for a decade and test how this concept will work in other countries.  We can be one of the first ones in the entire world and give our lessons of fighting corruption.

Mariam finished her speech by representing a wide range of issues that would be raised during the establishment of such a register in Armenia. A heated discussion by young leaders followed. The main topic concerned which should be the competent body who should manage the register. Whether it should be an already existing body, like the State Register Agency of Legal Entities of the RA under the Ministry of Justice of the RA or the State Commission for the Protection of the Economic Competition of the RA. The option of delegating such powers to the National Security Service of the RA has also been proposed taking into account the level of trust in this body after the Velvet Revolution.

The training ended by reaching an agreement, that Mariam will become the mentor of 2 young leaders, Luiza Vardanyan and Ghazhar Teqnejian during their final assignments in the frameworks of the anti-corruption school as their topics will be dedicated to the necessity of establishing beneficial ownership registries in Armenia. At the end of workshop, reception has been foreseen.

The article is prepared in the frameworks of the project “Introduction of the institute of beneficial ownership in RA with the aim of combatting corruption” implemented under an Eastern Partnership Civil Society Fellowship provided by EU financed “Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility” Project, carried out by a consortium headed by GDSI Limited.

The content of the article is the sole responsibility of the author, and neither the European Union nor the implementing consortium of the “Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility” do not bear any responsibility for it.

Zakar Iskandaryan,

Mariam Zadoyan