The court began the bankruptcy of the Russian “daughter” of Google

MOSCOW, 12 Sep — PRIME. The Moscow Arbitration Court recognized the statement of Google LLC, the Russian division of Google, about its own bankruptcy as justified and introduced the initial bankruptcy procedure in the company – observation, a RIA Novosti correspondent reports from the courtroom.

“Recognize the statement … as justified, introduce a monitoring procedure for a period of six months,” Judge Valery Marasanov announced the operative part of the court’s ruling.

The meeting took no more than a few minutes – the representatives of the creditors did not appear in court, only Google’s lawyers, who confirmed the claim for bankruptcy.

Earlier, the company’s lawyer said that the company’s unfulfilled obligations exceed 19 billion rubles, and the assets are estimated at 3.5 billion, another 1.2 billion rubles were arrested in the accounts.

LLC “Google” posted on the website of the Unified Federal Register of legally significant information about the facts of the activities of legal entities (Fedresurs) a message about its intention to initiate its bankruptcy as early as May 18.

It noted that the company “is filing a notice of intent to file for insolvency (bankruptcy) … because from March 22, 2022 it foresees its own bankruptcy and the impossibility of fulfilling financial obligations.” In a message on the Federal resource, the company did not disclose the amount of its unfulfilled obligations.

Meanwhile, on July 18, the Magistrate of the Tagansky district of Moscow fined Google 21 billion rubles – for the IT giant, this is the second negotiable fine for repeated failure to remove prohibited information. The amount is 1/10 of the revenue of Google and its affiliates in Russia.

This is the largest fine ever received by an IT company in Russia. In December 2021, the first turnover fine was imposed on the subsidiary of Google – the court exacted 7.2 billion rubles from it for repeated failure to remove prohibited information. At the end of February, the Tagansky Court of Moscow dismissed the company’s complaint about this decision.

In addition, an arbitration award came into force on the suit of the Tsargrad TV channel to unblock its YouTube channel. In that case, Google was charged with a progressively increasing court fine for each day it failed to comply with a court order. The company’s accounts were arrested by bailiffs.

As of the beginning of April, a billion rubles were transferred in favor of Tsargrad. Further accrual of the fine has been suspended until September, but the funds received on the arrested Google account continue to be transferred to the bailiffs’ deposit. On April 29, a Google representative said in court that 9 billion rubles had already been transferred from the company’s accounts to the FSSP deposit.

The Moscow Arbitration Court accepted several more lawsuits against Google and its “daughter” for unblocking YouTube channels of various Russian media. As part of these cases, the court also took interim measures to seize funds and other property of Google in the amount of several billion rubles.