Armenia Refers 2003 Energachap Privatization Findings to Prosecutors

Armenia's State Oversight Service said on 30 October 2026 that it had referred findings about the 2003 privatization of Energachap to the Prosecutor General's Office for legal assessment. The referral concerns how the winning bidder was chosen and whether obligations under the sale were fulfilled. It is a referral for review, not an announcement that prosecutors have charged anyone or that a court has found criminal wrongdoing.

According to the agency's Armenian-language statement, Golden Roof LLC offered 98 million Armenian drams for shares and pledged investments of 380 million drams over three years. A competing bidder proposed 1.34 billion drams in investment and more jobs. The service questioned the basis for choosing the winning offer and reported that a person linked to a former Electric Networks of Armenia board chairman owned the winning company. It also alleged intervention by the power distributor's then-director, identified only by initials in the statement. Those are the oversight agency's findings, not independent judicial determinations.

The agency said records showed investments totalling 380.665 million drams but did not contain enough documentation to assess fully how the money was used. It also said it could not find supporting documentation for repayment of a 1.259 million-dram obligation and that the contractual monthly minimum salary of 75,000 drams had not been ensured for 180 employees. Missing documentation is not evidence that the entire investment amount was lost or stolen.

A further figure in the statement requires care: approximately 2.306 billion drams was the rent calculated for use of part of Energachap's property by Electric Networks of Armenia between February 2004 and 1 October 2026. The statement does not establish that this amount was unlawfully paid, diverted or lost. The original 2003 tender evaluation, executed sale agreement, complete investment accounts, lease-payment records and any response from the original buyer were not independently available for this report.

The historical review comes amid a separate, contemporary dispute over the ownership of Electric Networks of Armenia. On 15 October the government declared its shares subject to overriding public interest, a step in its proposed takeover. That separate procedure does not prove misconduct in the 2003 Energachap transaction, and no causal link between the two decisions is established here.

The next questions are whether prosecutors have registered a case or issued a formal decision, what the signed tender and sale documents actually require, and how the affected parties respond. Until those records emerge, the substantiated news is the oversight agency's documented referral and the specific accounting and tender concerns it reported.