Moscow. April 13. INTERFAX.RU – The Moscow Arbitration Court satisfied Tsargrad's claim against Google, deciding that the channel's YouTube account, blocked due to US sanctions, should be restored, and the funds lost for the monetization of content should be returned to its owner, Valery Rukobratsky told Interfax , press secretary of the owner of the media Konstantin Malofeev.
“The court satisfied our claim in full, deciding to restore the account of the TV channel Tsargrad on YouTube, and to execute the offer agreement, that is, it means that they must return money to us for the monetization of our content,” Rukobratsky said on Tuesday.
According to him, if Google does not comply with the court's decision after its entry into force, then the company will be charged a progressive penalty in the amount of 100 thousand rubles. per day; The court decision can be appealed against by Google in the appellate instance within two months, otherwise after this period it will take effect.
Dmitry Magonya, the managing partner of ART DE LEX, who represented Malofeev's interests in the process, told Interfax that blocking the account and terminating the contract for the monetization of the Tsargrad YouTube channel were recognized by the arbitration court as unlawful.
According to Magoni, the case is of a precedent nature both for Russia and on a global scale. “For the first time, a Russian court ordered a resident company of the country that applied the sanctions to fulfill the contract, which it refused to execute due to the sanctions. In other words, the court found the sanctions to be contrary to the public order of the Russian Federation in relation to the behavior of a foreign company,” the lawyer explained.
In addition, he noted, for the first time the court made a decision on the merits on the basis of a new norm – Art. 248.1 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (the exclusive competence of the arbitration courts of the Russian Federation in disputes with the participation of persons in respect of whom restrictive measures have been introduced), which was introduced by law of June 8, 2020.
“This is critically important to ensure access to justice for sanctioned persons,” the lawyer said.
Interfax asked the press service of Google for a comment.
At the end of August 2020, Tsargrad TV filed a lawsuit with the Moscow Arbitration Court, in which it demanded that Google restore its YouTube account and reimburse the lost funds from content monetization due to its removal. Tsargrad Media's lawsuit was filed against Google LLC, Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC. As Rukobratsky specified then, at the time of blocking, the YouTube channel “Tsargrad” had 1 million subscribers.
On July 28, 2020, the Tsargrad TV channel announced the blocking of its YouTube account. The press service of Google told Interfax that the blocking of the TV channel is connected with the company's compliance with the legislation on sanctions. The founder of the TV channel Malofeev has been under US sanctions since the end of 2014 in connection with the events in eastern Ukraine.
