Hovhannes Ghoukasyan, former owner of the Milano store in Yerevan, says he will take his eminent domain case regarding the seizure of is property by the government to the European Court of Human Rights.

Ghoukasyan says the government seized his property in 2009 but has failed to construct anything of public value on the site since.

“Tell me what public value has been built there in the past four years. They have done nothing with the property. The building has collapsed, that’s all,” says Ghoukasyan who adds that he has given up on defending his rights in the Armenian courts.

The law states that if the new property owners fail to begin work on the project for which the land was appropriated in the first place, the site must be returned to the original owner.