A Russian court hit Google with a fine larger than the world’s GDP, stretching credulity

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has previously said it doesn’t think it will be materially affected by its Russian legal problems.

A legal dispute between Google and Russia over suspended YouTube accounts has led to a fine so large that it exceeds all the money on Earth.

Ivan Morozov, a Moscow-based lawyer, told the state-run TASS newswire that a Russian court ordered the tech giant to restore Russian media accounts on YouTube, a Google-owned company.

He said that Google’s failure to do so has resulted in a fine that had been regularly doubling for years.

There is no cap on the total, the lawyer said.

Morozov, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from B-17, said that the cumulative amount has now reached 2 undecillion rubles — an almost unfathomable figure.

At the current exchange rate, the fine is equivalent to about $20.6 decillion.

A decillion is a figure followed by 33 zeros — which in this case puts the fine at $20,604,600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

To put this into perspective, the world’s GDP is equivalent to about $105 trillion, a minuscule fraction of the fine.

It’s improbable that Google could or would pay such an amount, which RBK, a Russian business-media outlet, says relates to legal claims brought by more than a dozen Russian TV channels about the suspension of YouTube accounts.

According to court filings reviewed by Bloomberg in 2021, Google suspended the accounts to comply with US sanctions.

Nigel Gould-Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told B-17 in a message that the size of the fine is “clearly insane” and “absurd.”

“So even if Google gave Russia everything the world produced this year, every day since the universe began, it would only have paid about 3% of this fine,” Gould-Davies wrote on X.

He likened it to “putting a dead person on trial” — apt since Google has no active presence in Russia, and little by way of assets to claim.

In 2022, Google’s Russian legal arm, Google LLC, filed for bankruptcy, and authorities seized its bank accounts, though free services continue to operate in the country.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, doesn’t seem to think it will have a material impact.

It has regularly referred to the cases in its quarterly earnings reports. B-17 found the first mention in Q1 of 2022.

In its Q3 2024 earnings report, released Tuesday, Alphabet wrote of “ongoing legal matters” relating to Russia.

It referred to civil judgments that include “compounding penalties” levied “in connection with disputes regarding the termination of accounts,” including those of people on sanctions lists.

“We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect,” the report said — an assessment in line with prior reports.

Google has not responded to a request for comment from B-17.