Who owes whom?
"It's not right when they choose the "Cafesjian Museum-Foundation" as the target. It had to be aimed at the DHAA Company," lawyer of the Foundation Ara Zohrabyan told "A1+" touching upon the protest organized by the group of employees working on the project near the Cascade.
According to the employees, they work for the "Cafesjian Museum-Foundation" and have helped construct the Cascade complex and the Tamanyan square and the construction on the "Cafesjian Museum" is underway. According to the protesters, the Foundation owes 120-140,000 dollars to 34 workers who are demanding that money from executive director of "Cafesjian Museum", Michael de Marshe.
According to Ara Zohrabyan, "Cafesjian Foundation" has no relations with its workers because they work for DHAA CJSC.
Ara Zohrabyan confirmed that Mr. De Marshe was truly appointed director of that company. "But that still doesn't mean that the DHAA employees automatically become the Foundation's employees. That is not the case both legally and de facto. The Foundation and the DHAA have no relation at all," he said, underlining that the Foundation was only a client that transferred the amount foreseen for completion of activities to the DHAA.
According to him, Mr. De Marshe tried to solve the issue of salaries and wanted to understand what debts the DHAA has. "De Marsh is the kind of person who wants to peacefully solve the matter in favor of the employees," assured the lawyer, adding that DHAA has had more obligations than its actives. In other words, DHAA can't pay even 20% of its salaries if it is not declared bankrupt and put up for auction with its items.
"If those employees demand their salaries from DHAA, the company will simply go bankrupt and will not be able to give the entire amount and none of the share-holders will be held responsible," said Ara Zohrabyan.
According to him, when Mr. De Marshe started looking into the issue, it turned out that the employees didn't have any documents. Those issues are in the process of clarification and according to Zohrabyan, DHAA has two share-holders of which one has pledged to pay 50% of his shares to the employees under the condition that the employees present real figures that the DHAA owes.
"As a lawyer, my advice to the employees is that they can receive more from DHAA through friendly relations rather than going to court and trying to solve the issue there. In other words, they should keep calm, although it is their constitutional right to hold protests and appeal to the court. But if the share-holder lacks good will, we will move to the field of law," said lawyer Ara Zohrabyan.
