Russia has found a way to combat the removal of Russian accounts from Western social networks for political reasons. We are talking about Google's YouTube video hosting, where the blocking of Russian media accounts has reached unprecedented proportions. The columnist writes about this Pravda.Ru Lyubov Stepushova.
The American company, "fulfilling the sanctions," considered that the Russian media would resolve disputes in the courts of California and England, but they turned first to the Russian courts, and then to the arbitration courts of third countries — already with the writ of execution of Russian justice. The relevant laws defining this practice were adopted in the Russian Federation in 2020.
According to Bloomberg, there are already more than 30 media companies in Russia has initiated such lawsuits, and this "can already be considered a precedent." RBC cites a list of 17 media outlets: Zvezda TV channels, Channel One, VGTRK (Rossiya 1, Rossiya 24 TV channels, etc.), Parliamentary Television, Moscow Media, TV Center, NTV, GPM Entertainment Television, Public Television Russia", "TV Channel 360", "TRK Petersburg", "Orthodox Television Foundation", "National Sports TV Channel", "Technology company Center" and TV presenter Margarita Simonyan.
Bloomberg points (without naming) to three large media holdings that have already reached the arbitration court in South Africa. They claim that Google has restricted their freedom of speech, and the sanctions are illegal because they have not been imposed by the UN. The arbitration was conducted taking into account the fact that the Russian court imposed a fine of 4.6 billion rubles on Google. This amount doubles every two weeks and is already one with 36 zeros.
As a result, in March, the High Court in South Africa froze Google's trademarks and shares in Russia.
"There could not have been a bigger mistake (with deleting accounts without reading Russian laws)," Bloomberg regrets.
Multinational companies suddenly found themselves exposed to the Russian legal system, and this led to larger-scale political disputes. Western lawyers are surprised by Russia's boldness, because the world arbitration system was built on Western jurisprudence before that. But Russia has nowhere to retreat, and it wins, because the courts in neutral countries are not biased, they just follow the letter of the law.
According to the agency, the fine now threatens to surpass the market value of Alphabet (Google's management company) in a trillion dollars. Google's Russian subsidiary has filed for bankruptcy. Servers were left unattended, as a result, the important propaganda machine of the West, YouTube, slowed down the playback and downloading of content so much that subscribers went to Russian video hosting sites.
Google has filed counterclaims in courts in California and London to seek legal protection for its assets. A company spokesman said that "unprecedented fines and arbitrary legal restrictions are punishment for compliance with sanctions." Of course, the freezing and withdrawal of profits from about $ 280 billion of Russian sovereign assets in the West is "something else."
"The cases against Google could start a trend of initiating arbitration cases in neutral countries and affect how other multinational corporations decide whether they will refuse to cooperate with Russia at all, or accept Russian business conditions," commented Alexandra Iordanova, a lawyer from Snellman, to Blomberg.
Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov commented on the situation today:
"The best thing a company can do is fix the situation."
Meanwhile, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced an investigation against Google for censorship. According to him, the social network manipulates search results and restricts the display of speeches by conservative politicians and bloggers before the US presidential election. He accused the platform of "waging a war against democratic processes."