On Wednesday, January 3, 2024, several technology giants were released from the list of debtors in the Russian State Marshals database, which means that some fines previously faced by these companies have been cancelled. One of the companies, Telegram, stressed today that it did not know the reason why the fine had been lifted. Other technology giants previously sued include Google, Meta, TikTok and YouTube.
According to Reuters, a Telegram spokesperson explained that this may be due to the fact that these companies lack their own assets in Russia and are not able to execute. They also clarified that since they do not have any offices or employees in Russia, they did not know why the fine was withdrawn.
"Telegram does not have any assets, offices, employees or equipment in Russia. It has no presence in Russia, but even so we do not know why the fines against Telegram and other companies were withdrawn."
The spokesman also believed that, according to some Russian news agencies, the fines were canceled because bailiffs were unable to find seizable assets to collect the fines.
Despite this, Telegram remains a widely used platform in Russia.
While charges against companies like Google and Meta were dropped, others like Twitch and X still face charges. More specifically, these fines total 23 million rubles and 51 million rubles respectively.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, some Western social media platforms refused to provide services in Russia.
In October 2022, Meta suffered strong retaliation from the Russian government and was included in the list of "extremists" and was therefore banned in Russia.
As for Google, it faces several hefty fines and has tense relations with the Russian government. In May 2022, Google’s company assets worth 7.7 billion rubles ($84,291,183) were confiscated by Russia.
Google Russia also filed for bankruptcy after its bank account was forcibly seized by Russian authorities.
Therefore, there have been many incidents in history where Western companies have had bad relations with Russian authorities, but this cancellation of fines is rare.
As of now, except for Telegram, the Russian State Marshal Police and the companies involved have not commented on this.