A court in Moscow has seized the assets and frozen the bank accounts of Google's Russian subsidiary as a guarantee against a possible court decision in connection with a lawsuit filed against the American technology giant by a subsidiary of the Gazprom-Media holding company.
The Arbitration Court in Moscow reported on April 26 that it had made a decision six days earlier to take over Google's assets, which are worth about $6,6 million.
Gazprom-Media subsidiary GPM Entertainment TV is suing Google for refusing to grant it access to its YouTube channel. He is also seeking financial compensation for the damage and wants to regain access to the YouTube channel.
The lawsuit also names Google Ireland Ltd, Google LLC and Google Commerce Ltd.
In early March, days after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Google blocked the YouTube channels of several Russian state media in Europe and shut down a monetization program for Russian bloggers, including the YouTube Premium and YouTube Music packages.
Google's president of global affairs, Kent Walker, said in a blog post at the time the channels were blocked that "in this extraordinary crisis, we are taking extraordinary measures to stop the spread of misinformation and disrupt disinformation campaigns online."
GPM Entertainment TV's YouTube channels TNT and NTV were also blocked at the time.
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