The Tsargrad TV channel, founded by Konstantin Malofeev, announced that it had received one billion rubles from Google as a penalty in a lawsuit due to blocking on YouTube.
“Bank accounts of Google LLC. blocked by bailiffs in pursuance of a court decision at the request of the First Russian TV Channel,” the channel’s representatives added. Malofeev promised that “the billion Tsargrad seized today send to support Russia's special military operation.»
The Federal Bailiffs Service and Google representatives did not comment on this.
The database of bailiffs mentions productionto OOO Google, the Russian subsidiary of the company, for a billion rubles. The company, according to the database of the Moscow Arbitration Court, challenged the blocking of their ruble accounts by the bailiffs, but the court denied it on March 25.
Screenshot from the FSSP database.
The Tsargrad YouTube channel was blocked in July 2020 from -for US sanctions against Malofeev. In April 2021, the Moscow Arbitration Court ordered Google to restore the account within a month, and in case of refusal to pay Tsargrad 100 thousand rubles of a penalty for each day of delay; In this case, the amount of the penalty should double every week.
In December 2021, the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal corrected this decision and ruled that within nine months after the entry into force of the act, the amount of the fine cannot exceed a billion rubles. After this period, the limit on the maximum amount of the fine is removed.
A week later, Google partially restored access to the Tsargrad YouTube channel, while channel owners were not given access to publishing new videos and monetizing content. A channel with new Tsargrad videos, created on November 29, 2021, is now available on YouTube.