The owner of the Spas TV channel filed a complaint against Google with the SEC

The statement claims that Alphabet “systematically and deliberately” withheld information from the company’s investors about its financial obligations to Russian television channels. In March 2023, the Moscow Arbitration Court imposed a fine on the American corporation for failing to comply with the requirement to restore the accounts of Russian media on YouTube.

Several Russian TV channels, including Channel One, VGTRK, Zvezda, Russian Public Television, TV Channel 360, TRK Petersburg, Orthodox Television Foundation and some others, filed a lawsuit against Google demanding the restoration of their video hosting accounts.

For each day of non-compliance with the requirement, the company had to pay a fine of 100,000 rubles, which was doubled weekly with no maximum limit. Currently, the debt of Google LLC (the Russian legal entity of Google) to the channels is 8 undecillion rubles (a number with 36 zeros) or 8 trillion dollars, which is several times the amount of all the money in the world.

The SEC filing alleges that by not disclosing the fine to investors, the company misled its shareholders and therefore violated the reporting rules of the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the NASDAQ stock market. Under the U.S. Securities Act of 1934, it is illegal to fail to provide such information when trading securities.

In a report for the second quarter of 2024, Alphabet indicated that “Google has ongoing legal issues related to Russia,” including those related to fines and closure of accounts of sanctioned entities. At the same time, the holding company stressed that this will not have a significant impact on the company’s activities.

According to Roman Kuzmin, an advisor to the Pen & Paper Bar Association, Alphabet shareholders can file a class action lawsuit because the company provided distorted information, but to do so the spa owner will have to prove in court that the information about the fines was significant. for investors’ decision-making and that its concealment had an impact on the decisions of shareholders in the market.

Alphabet’s capitalization, according to the Companiesmarketcap portal, is 2.1 trillion dollars, which places it in fifth place in the ranking of the most valuable companies in the world. Over the past year, this figure has increased by 32.42%.