Google’s Assets Frozen by Moscow Arbitration Court

According to the independent Russian news agency Interfax, the Russian "Entertainment Television" has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. tech giant following YouTube's blocking of the TNT channel. Google is required to fully restore access to the YouTube account of the TNT channel or pay a fine.   

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The court documents also name as defendants, in addition to Google's Russian subsidiary, the U.S.-based Google LLC, and the Irish Google Ireland Limited and Google Commerce Limited.  

Ekaterina Titova, the judge presiding over the case, said that the TNT channel would likely suffer substantial losses if no freeze were placed on Google's assets. This case is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on June 1. 

The court dismissed Entertainment Television's first lawsuit on April 13. It asked for the freezing of all funds and assets held by Google's Russian subsidiary, which amounted to 1 billion rubles.

Representatives of the Entertainment Television company, which is affiliated with Gazprom-Media, told that back in March 2022, Youtube blocked the official account of the TNT channel with no explanation, raising technical problems impeding the uploading of content and viewer access. 

The Moscow Arbitration Court ruled in mid-March in favor of the Russian channel "Tsargrad" after YouTube blocked it. At that time, Google was ordered to pay 1 billion rubles to the company.  

Several Russian state-funded media outlets, among them RT, have had their channels blocked by YouTube since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24.