The Yerevan First Instance Court of General Jurisdiction of Civil Cases has partially upheld the claim filed by “Veolia Djur” CJSC against French-Armenian journalist Leo Nikolyan and two media organizations.
In 2023, “Veolia Djur” CJSC filed a lawsuit with the Yerevan First Instance Court of General Jurisdiction of Civil Cases against Leo Nikolyan, the “Hayeli Club for Democracy Support” NGO, and “Live News Media” LLC. The claim concerned the removal of videos and publications containing defamatory content, a retraction of the defamatory information, as well as monetary compensation for non-pecuniary damage.
The court ruled that Leo Nikolyan must retract the defamatory statements made against “Veolia Djur” CJSC, which were presented in a program published on the YouTube channel of the “Hayeli” Club. He was also ordered to publish a video statement publicly retracting the defamatory claims made about the company. These claims included allegations of corrupt activities by “Veolia Djur” CJSC, assertions that the company’s management was involved in covering up such activities through corrupt agreements, redirecting citizens from free services to paid services by other companies as part of those agreements, and claims that the Ambassador of France to Armenia, Anne Louyot, was allegedly supporting the company in covering up its corrupt activities in exchange for financial compensation.
In addition, the court decided to recover 1,000,000 AMD from Leo Nikolyan in favor of “Veolia Djur” CJSC for presenting defamatory factual information.
You can read the court decision and case details on the official datalex.am website via the following link: https://datalex.am:443/?app=AppCaseSearch&case_id=49258120924370540