Freedom House human rights organization recently published the Nations in Transit annual report which contains highly controversial statements and raises questions as to the impartiality of the organization's Armenian office in particular.
In the annual report published in 2024, this reputable organization has made defamatory assumptions regarding ARMECONOMBANK OJSC, which are based on false and unobjective information.
According to the report, ARMECONOMBANK has allegedly helped the leading Civil Contract Party to bypass the funding rules for parties and used illegal fundraising mechanisms. In particular, the authors of the report have focused on the assumption that most of the donors of the Civil Contract Party were allegedly not aware of the donations made on their behalf through the bank.
ARMECONOMBANK OJSC has a history of 33 years and has been closely cooperating with more than 20 reputable and leading international institutions. It has successfully implemented more than 120 projects with these institutions, which means that prior to and throughout any such project the Bank is properly checked for compliance with the appropriate standards and requirements set by the partner institutions. The bank is considered one of the most reliable, stable, and prospective entities in the Armenian banking sector. The bank's practices include mandatory compliance assurance as prescribed by the provisions of applicable Armenian and international banking laws any time it carries out a transaction or establishes a business relationship with customers, including customer identification and verification, identification of the origin of funds, and other steps required by due diligence. All of these requirements are strictly observed by the professionals in charge.
Meanwhile, the representatives of the Armenian office of Freedom House have used false and groundless information placed in some media to damage the Bank's good name and solid reputation and attempted to link the Bank's shareholders with the ruling party by making imaginary analyses without valid facts. Moreover, while drawing up the report, the authors have failed to, or even deliberately refrained from checking any facts, which resulted in cheap manipulation possibly based on expectations of political or financial benefits from certain entities. This, perhaps, gives us reasons to assume that some people in the Armenian office of a reputable international human rights organization are engaged in serving the political interests of others, making corrupt deals, and writing pre-ordered reports.
The representatives of ARMECONOMBANK OJSC have attempted to contact the representatives of the Armenian office of Freedom House in appropriate and civilized manner in order to jointly correct the inaccuracies found in the report, however the office left our phone calls unanswered, and neither it replied to our letters.
This also makes us assume that some employees of the Armenian office of Freedom House have violated their parent institution's principles of support of democracy to cater to the political or business interests and whims of some parties.
We consider it necessary to point out that the authors of the negative statements made in the report on ARMECONOMBANK have acted solely out of their own interest and such persons should not be employed at the representative office of such a reputable institution. In fact, these people have not only discredited ARMECONOMBANK OJSC, but also Freedom House by their activities. We hope that this statement will help the officers at the head office of Freedom House to take administrative action against or discharge the irresponsible and perhaps even corrupt employees of their Armenian office.
