The Arbitration Court of the Moscow District ruled in favor of Google LLC regarding the return of its dividends. The Russian branch of the corporation paid them to Google International LLC in December 2021 in the amount of $128.7 million, or 9.5 billion rubles at the time of transfer. After that, Google LLC was declared bankrupt.
The new bankruptcy trustee of the company, Valery Talyarovsky, considered these payments to the parent company illegal: at the time of their contribution, the Russian "subsidiary" of Google had already been declared insolvent. The dividends were paid from the profits of Google LLC for 2015–2017. In April 2024, Talyarovsky filed a lawsuit with the Arbitration Court of Moscow, and the court sided with the plaintiff.
The Arbitration Court of the city of Moscow ordered the recovery of 10 billion rubles from Google. The court declared two transactions concluded in 2021 invalid. The first concerned the transfer of 500 million rubles in dividend taxes to the budget of the Russian Federation, and the second concerned the transfer of 9.5 billion rubles to the accounts of Google International LLC. Both operations took place against the backdrop of the bankruptcy of Google LLC and were, in the opinion of the court, concluded with the aim of withdrawing assets.
Google twice tried to appeal the decision by filing appeals with the Arbitration and Ninth Arbitration Appeal Courts of Moscow. However, both times the decisions were made in favor of the Russian "subsidiary" of the company. The parent Google tried again to appeal the decision in the Arbitration Court of the Moscow District, but again failed to achieve the desired result.
On the afternoon of January 13, the court also rejected the company's cassation appeal.
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