[Regnum] The amount of claims filed by 17 Russian TV channels against Google for 2 undecillion rubles (10 to the power of 36) or $20 decillion (2×10 to the power of 36) for blocking their accounts on the YouTube platform exceeds all the wealth accumulated in the world. This was reported on November 1 by The Washington Post (WP).
The publication cited data from The Boston Consulting Group, which estimated the world's total wealth at $477 trillion. According to the World Bank, global GDP in 2023 was about $105.4 trillion.
"In the case of verbal symmetry, the penalty could soon reach a googol - a one followed by 100 zeros - the mathematical term that inspired the name of the search engine," the publication's article says.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on October 29 it became known that a Russian court recognized the claims of 17 Russian TV channels against Google as legitimate and ruled that the company must pay 2 undecillion rubles. If the platform does not comply with this decision within nine months, the amount will increase by 100 thousand rubles every week.
Lawyer and IT specialist Igor Baranov explained in an interview with IA Regnum that such a large amount of claims against Google was made up of the amount of lawsuits and fines issued to the company. The expert also doubts that there are real levers for collecting funds from the corporation, since it has not registered a legal entity in Russia.
Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the size of the demands to Google, called it symbolic. Such a sum should become a reason for the organization to pay attention to the problem. The best option would be if the company corrected the situation with blocking Russian TV channels, the Kremlin representative added.
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A lawyer explained whether it is realistic to recover two undecillion rubles from Google
Google Corporation continues to ignore the legal demands of Russian courts, and at the moment the amount of fines is calculated in undecillions, but this is not the limit, said lawyer and IT specialist Igor Baranov in a conversation with Regnum News Agency. However, if the American company participates in the trial, the number of zeros in the final debt may be reduced, the expert believes.
The total amount of claims by 17 Russian TV channels against the American corporation Google has reached two undecillion rubles (₽2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). During the court hearing, which took place on Monday, October 28, the judge noted that he was considering “a case in which there are many, many zeros.”
Baranov said that the amount of the claim is made up of the demands of specific organizations that believe that their rights have been violated, and very large fines. It is the fines that contribute to the increase of this amount multiple times, the specialist emphasized.
"I'm not sure that there are real levers for collecting money now, given that Google has never registered a legal entity in the Russian Federation. But if the company fails to comply with the court's decision, the fine may be indexed. But we can only guess how much it will reach," the expert shared his opinion.
According to the lawyer, if the corporation decides to participate in the trial, the amount of debt can be appealed in some way. It will not be possible to appeal the fines in their pure form, but if the company wants to comply with this court decision and pay the fines that were assessed, then theoretically the possibility of reducing the amount could be present, Baranov believes.
"But if the corporation's legal entity were present on the territory of the Russian Federation, then we could talk about malicious failure to comply with the court's decision. In such a case, all legal forces that the legal authority has are used to collect funds, especially if the company has at least some financial capacity. Potentially, it would even be possible to look at the criminal component in this case," the specialist summed up.
Regnum News Agency reported that on October 4, a Moscow court ordered Google to unblock 27 YouTube resources of the international TV channel RT. In May 2022, the court registered RT's claim and seized the property of Google LLC for a total of 500 million rubles. And then it was reported that in the event of failure to comply with the court decision, the company would pay a penalty of 100 thousand rubles daily until the actual execution of the court decision. In addition, the penalty will double every week.
It was previously reported that Russian courts had repeatedly fined Google for systematically failing to remove information prohibited for distribution in Russia and knowingly false data about a special military operation. Thus, at the end of September, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow found the American corporation guilty of committing an administrative offense under Part 2 of Article 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("Failure of a website owner to remove information if the obligation to remove such information is provided for by Russian legislation") and imposed a fine of 3.5 million rubles.
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