On February 28 at the RA Commercial Court hearings on the suit of “Noyan Tapan” LLC versus “Ararat Service” Ltd./“Lotos” TV company were held. On September 14, 2001, the operations of “Noyan Tapan” TV channel were stopped. The TV channel was the product of a joint project between these two organizations, which rebroadcast the Russian TV 6 and aired its own programs. “Lotos” TV company (the owner of a broadcast license and the representative of TV 6 in Armenia) canceled the partnership with “Noyan Tapan” on the grounds of the latter one’s refusal to go on air without its own programs and to rebroadcast TV 6 only. This violated one of the cooperation agreement items, according to which “Lotos” TV company, having expressed a wish to annul the cooperation, should have given an official six months’ prior notice to “Noyan Tapan”. The notice was given on the very day – September 14 – when the operations of the transmitter ensuring the air of “Noyan Tapan” were stopped (see details in YPC Weekly Newsletter, September 15-21, 2001).
The suit of “Noyan Tapan” contained a number of demands, also about the compensation to be made by “Ararat Service” Ltd./“Lotos” TV company for the material losses due to the unilateral annulment of the agreement, and execution of the agreement commitments in kind.
The Commercial Court satisfied the suit partially. In particular, a decision was made on restoring joint activities until the cooperation agreement is legitimately invalidated, and on compensation to be made by the respondent for the material damage suffered due to idleness. Thus, the non-property claims of “Noyan Tapan” were fully satisfied by the court and the property demands were met in part.
