Google wins permanent injunction from London’s High Court to prevent enforcement of Russian YouTube judgements
Russia’s attempt to enforce its judgements against Google over the closure of certain Google and YouTube accounts, has been soundly defeated in a UK courtroom.
Reuters reported that Google on Wednesday won an permanent injunction from London’s High Court to prevent the enforcement of Russian judgements against the US tech giant over the closure of various pro-Russia Google and YouTube accounts.
It comes after Russian authorities in November 2024 had calculated that Google owes the Russian government a fine worth approximately $20 decillion (20 followed by 33 zeros), which was more than the world’s entire GDP.
Permanent anti-enforcement injunction
Now Reuters has reported that UK High Court Judge Andrew Henshaw has granted Google a permanent anti-enforcement injunction, on the grounds that Google and YouTube’s terms and conditions required disputes to be brought to court in England.
Henshaw also in a ruling wrote that Google Russia’s liquidator had now estimated the total of some of the fines faced by Google amounted to 20 trillion times the gross domestic product (GDP) of the whole world.
It comes after Moscow’s Tagansky district court had fined both Google and Discord 3.5 million roubles ($37,674.92) each in October 2024, in a symbolic act as Google (like many other tech platforms) has already exited Russia.
The fine is because Google has not restored YouTube accounts belonging to 17 Russian TV channels including state-owned RT and Tsargrad (owned by a Russian oligarch).
TV channels
In early 2022 YouTube had blocked channels connected to Russian state-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik over its fake propaganda claims, amidst punishing global sanctions against Russia.
Prior to that in September 2021, YouTube had deleted the German-language channels of RT (formerly Russia Today), for breaking its policies and rules surrounding Coronavirus misinformation.
Facebook owner Meta Platforms also banned Russian state media outlets in 2024, for allegedly using deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online
In September 2024 TikTok removed Russian state media accounts for ‘covert influence operations’ ahead of the US presidential election.
But Tsargrad TV, RT and another Russian company which operates the Spas TV channel had obtained judgements in a Russian court for removing the above channels on YouTube.
The Russian court had ordered Google to restore these channels,”, and the ruling stated that if the fine was not paid within nine months, it doubles every day after that – with no upper limit.
Judge Henshaw noted that the three channels from late 2023 had also tried to enforce the Russian judgements against Google in courts in a number of nations countries – Algeria, Egypt, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Serbia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey and Vietnam.
The status of these cases in those countries remains unclear at the time of writing.
Symbolic act?
It is widely accepted that Russia’s huge fines imposed on Google were largely symbolic and designed to spur the US tech company into lifting restrictions on Russian YouTube channels.
YouTube is still available in Russia, despite severe throttling and outages in the summer of 2024 by Russian authorities.
Russian authorities have repeatedly threatened to take YouTube offline over its bans on state-owned Russian content.
Platforms already banned in Russia include Meta’s Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.
Russia exit
But Moscow has little leverage left against Google, despite YouTube still hosting many Western bloggers factually covering Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, allowing Russian citizens to access independent news and online content outside of Moscow’s strict propaganda controls.
In May 2022 Russian bailiffs had seized 7.7bn roubles from Google that had been ordered as part of a fine calculated on the basis of the company’s then annual turnover – which had been the first time such a fine had been levied in Russia.
The Russian unit of Google was declared bankrupt by a court in Moscow in October 2023 after more than a year of proceedings that stemmed from local officials’ seizure of funds from the company’s bank account in May 2022 in payment of a fine.
Other than YouTube, Google continues to provide free services such as Search, YouTube and Gmail in Russia.