The process of identifying the real owners of metal mining companies still does not serve its objective. The reason is mainly the gaps in the legal regulations, which were used by a number of mining companies to hide the real owners while filling out the declarations without violating the statutory requirements. This is what the document entitled "Results of the study conducted in the mining sector" published by RA State Commission for the Protection of Economic Competition says. The problem of not revealing the real owners in case of a share of less than 10% was considered a problem here.
"The main reason for not setting a lower threshold for the ownership of real owners is that it may burden the companies' administration with submitting declarations conditioned with the need to submit a large numbers of individuals, but the first attempt to identify real owners in Armenia shows that the number of real owners does not exceed 9 individuals,” the document says.
The commission considers that the other problem in the process of identifying the real owners is the fact that the companies ensuring the participation of the real owners are registered in offshore zones, “which makes it difficult to identify the real owners and assess their impact on other product markets."
January 25, 2021 at 18:32