The amount of demands from Russian channels to Google has increased to 2 billion rubles

At the last court hearing, held on October 28, the judge noted that “a case in which there are many zeros” is being considered. An undecillion contains 36 zeros, the publication notes.

A Russian court fined Google for refusing to restore Russian media accounts on company-owned YouTube. The affected parties in the case are the television channels “Zvezda”, “Channel One”, VGTRK, “Parliamentary Television”, “Moscow Media”, “TV-Center”, NTV, “GPM Entertainment Television”, “Public Television of “Russia”. “, “TV Channel 360” “, “TRK Petersburg”, “Orthodox Television Foundation”, “National Sports Channel”, “Center for Technological Business”, as well as individual entrepreneur Margarita Simonyan.

The court ordered Google to restore the accounts of these television channels on YouTube. For each day of non-compliance with the requirement, Google pays a fine of 100 thousand rubles, which doubles weekly without restrictions on the total amount. According to one of the participants in the process, in September the fine amounted to almost 13 decillion rubles (one followed by 33 zeros).

The litigation between Russian media and Google began in 2020, when YouTube blocked the accounts of the Tsargrad and RIA FAN TV channels due to violations of sanctions legislation. YouTube subsequently restricted access to the channels Sputnik, NTV, Rossiya 24, RT and other Russian state media, including regional branches of VGTRK.

In February 2022, Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) admitted that YouTube was abusing its dominant position by blocking Russian broadcasters’ channels. As a result, Google LLC was fined, which was later increased to 4 billion rubles.

In June 2022, Google’s Russian subsidiary Google LLC filed for bankruptcy due to debts amounting to 19 billion rubles. In November 2023, the court officially declared the company bankrupt. Now, the bankruptcy trustee of Google LLC, Valery Talyarovsky, has initiated legal proceedings to hold the company’s senior management accountable and invalidate payments in favor of Google Ireland Limited.

Meanwhile, Russian media filed lawsuits in courts in Türkiye, Hungary, Spain and South Africa to enforce Russian decisions against Google abroad. The Moneyweb portal reported in June 2024 that a South African court confiscated Google’s assets in the country for failure to comply with a Moscow court decision to restore accounts on YouTube.

Google itself filed lawsuits in the courts of the United States and the United Kingdom in August against the owners of the Russian television channels RT, Tsargrad and Spas, attempting to prohibit them from bringing lawsuits outside of Russia.