Karapetyan sues France over villa dispute

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian businessman and owner of the Tashir Group, Samvel Karapetyan, has filed a lawsuit against France in connection with the seizure of his real estate. The claim has been submitted to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Filed in early June, the case likely concerns a villa located on the Côte d’Azur, reportedly valued at around 120 million euros. Legal experts suggest that the criminal proceedings recently launched against Karapetyan in Armenia could undermine his position in the arbitration case against the French authorities, according to Kommersant.

Karapetyan turned to ICSID, which is part of the World Bank Group and headquartered in Washington, D.C.

While the specific demands and content of the case remain undisclosed, it is known that the dispute involves real estate.

On the night of June 18, businessman Samvel Karapetyan left his Yerevan residence with law enforcement. He was later revealed to be under questioning at the Investigative Committee and was detained for two months that evening, charged with making a public call to usurp the powers of the Armenian government.

A few hours earlier, Karapetyan had issued a statement supporting the Armenian Apostolic Church: “I am with our Church, with our people. No matter how hard they try to discredit it, no power network... I don’t care about them or their electric grid. Everything will be fine. The people will speak, and they will understand their mistake.”

In response, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan posted: “Why have the immoral ‘clergymen’ and their immoral ‘benefactors’ become active? No worries — we will silence them again. Permanently.” He later added that the Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) should be nationalized swiftly.