On May 15, the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia
in the second and final reading adopted in full the draft law on Making Amendments
and Supplements to the Law on Cumulative Pension proposed by the Government of
RA.

The votes divided as follows: For: 67; Against:18;
Abstained: 29. Only the Republican Party voted for the adoption, “Prosperous
Armenia” and “Armenian Revolutionary Federation” parties abstained, “Heritage”
party, “Armenian National Congress” and “Rule of Law” (Orinats Yerkir) parties voted
against the draft, except for Hrant Bagratyan, who abstained.

According to the amendments the opinion of employees is
taken into account when cumulative deposits are withheld. These amendments are
legally binding from January 1, 2014, i.e. have a retroactive effect.

In case a person doesn’t want to join the system and make
transfers to pension funds he/she has to send by post or hand in in person a
respective letter addressed to his/her employer. In case the employer doesn’t
get such a letter he/she is obliged to calculate and transfer the cumulative
deposits.

It is to be recalled
that non dominant parties consider this approach to be unconstitutional and
proposed the reverse option, when a person presents the letter of agreement
only if he/she wants to join the cumulative system.

According to the new amendments, Article 76 which introduced
responsibility for not making payments or delays in payments ceased to be in
force.