Russia: Issued ruling upholding FAS fine against Google for breaching competition rules

On 6 July 2023, the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) announced that the Arbitration Court of the Moscow District upheld the legality of the fine imposed against Google for breaching competition rules. The FAS imposed a RUB 2 billion fine in July 2022 following an investigation that determined that Google had violated antitrust Law due to its non-transparent application of YouTube's terms of service. In particular, the FAS had noted that the rules regarding account suspension and content blocking were biased and that YouTube failed to issue warnings to users and justify its decisions to block or suspend accounts. Previously the Moscow Presnensky District Court issued a penalty of RUB 4 billion against Google after the company failed to pay the RUB 2 billion fine.