Court in Moscow upholds Meta fine of 2 billion rubles

The Tagansky Court of Moscow recognized the imposition of a fine of about 2 billion rubles on Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, as legal. This was reported on February 15 in the press service of the court.

“The Tagansky District Court of Moscow recognized as lawful the decision of the justice of the peace of the judicial district ‹…› in committing an administrative offense under Part 5 of Art. 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (“Repeated failure to delete information prohibited in the Russian Federation”) and imposing a fine of 1,990,984,950 rubles and 5 kopecks on the company,” the press service of the court said.

In January, it became known that Meta challenged the appointment of this turnover fine in Russia. On January 18, Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy, Irina Rukavishnikova, in an interview with Izvestia, noted that the introduction of turnover fines against foreign IT giants was a necessary measure on the part of Russia. She explained that in the past, companies were given the usual fixed penalties, which remained an imperceptible loss in a multi-billion dollar revenue. As a result, IT giants continued to violate the laws of the Russian Federation.

The fact that the companies imposed a large turnover fine became known on December 24 last year. The World Court in Moscow fined the company for failing to remove information prohibited in the Russian Federation. In addition, the court ruled to fine Google 7.2 billion rubles for refusing to remove content.

Then a member of the Federation Council Alexei Pushkov pointed out that the court’s decision is the result of a constant policy of companies avoiding the implementation of the laws of the Russian Federation. Under such conditions, the introduction of turnover penalties against Meta and Google is inevitable, the politician noted.