Russian Federal Tax Service asks court to recover 223.5 mln rubles from RFE/RL

MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) - The Arbitration Court of Moscow has initiated proceedings into a lawsuit lodged by the Russian Federal Tax Service's Inspectorate No. 7 for Moscow (the claimant in the bankruptcy case) against the Russian entity of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL, designated as foreign agent media in Russia), asking the court to recover 223.5 million rubles from the company.

The court said on its website that the proceedings will take place "at a court session following the introduction of the bankruptcy procedure, which follows the monitoring procedure in relation to the debtor."

The court received the tax inspectorate's lawsuit on November 23 and initiated proceedings into it after all irregularities were addressed, it said.

As reported earlier, Moscow's Arbitration Court on August 15 imposed a monitoring procedure as part of a bankruptcy case against the Russian entity of RFE/RL at the request of Federal Tax Service Inspectorate No. 7 in Moscow.

The court then approved Yulia Aga-Kuliyeva as the company's caretaker manager and included RFE/RL's debts to the tax authority in the company's creditor register.

The court scheduled the hearing of the company's bankruptcy case for February 6, 2023.

The court received the tax inspectorate's submission on March 4, 2022, resolved on March 10 to leave it without action over some irregularities, and after the latter were eliminated, the court accepted the submission as admissible.

The court exempted the tax inspectorate from paying the state duty in line with Article 105 of the Russian Code of Arbitration Proceedings and the Tax Code.

The company disagreed with the initiation of the bankruptcy case and filed an appeal, which was rejected on May 17. Then it filed an appeal with the Russian Supreme Court on June 17.

The court on December 21 recognized the creditors' claims of 790.4 million rubles to the Russian entity of RFE/RL as substantiated.

In particular, the court added the 720.8-million-ruble claim of Federal Tax Service Inspectorate No. 7 for Moscow and the claim of 69.6 million rubles from Moscow's department for magistrates' courts' activities to the list of RFE/RL creditors.

Russian telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor told Interfax in mid-June that more than 1,000 reports had been compiled on the Russian legal entity of RFE/RL and its general director for failing to label its materials and those produced by its projects, designated as foreign agent media, since January 2021.

"Since January 2021, 1,044 reports have been compiled against the Russian legal entity of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [set up to circulate materials of nine foreign-agent media outlets in Russia] and its general director for failing to label their materials," the regulator said.

That includes 390 reports compiled for "violation of the operational rules for foreign-agent media," 522 for a "repeat violation" and 132 for "gross violation," it said.

"A first-instance court heard 1,044 cases and ordered fines totaling 988.5 million rubles, and 938 resolutions on finding the respondent administratively liable in the total amount of 785.9 million rubles came into force," Roskomnadzor said.

Courts sent bailiffs 511 writs of execution concerning cases with expired voluntary payment periods (262 against legal entities and 249 against officials), it said.

Additionally, as Interfax has reported, magistrates' courts heard several dozen reports in 2022 over RFE/RL's failure to delete fake news stories regarding Russia's military operation in Ukraine. These reports have already resulted in fines of 75.8 million rubles, bringing the total amount of fines imposed on RFE/RL to over 1.064 billion rubles.

"Due to the systematic publication of information materials containing inaccurate information on the special military operation on Ukrainian territory, access to a number of informational resources of the Russian entity of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has been restricted," Roskomnadzor said.

It was reported that the websites of RFE/RL and other foreign media outlets were blocked on March 4. The company's bank accounts had been blocked as far back as May 14, 2021 at the demand of the Federal Bailiffs' Service.

The Moscow editorial board of RFE/RL has now relocated to Riga.

Roskomnadzor told Interfax in October 2021 that, since the start of that year, it had compiled 843 administrative reports over the violation of the regulation under which foreign agent media outlets must duly label their materials, including 840 against the Russian entity of RFE/RL and its general director and chief of the media corporation's Russian service, Andrei Shary.