Interim trustee of Google's Russian subsidiary discovers indications of deliberate bankruptcy at company

MOSCOW. Sept 5 (Interfax) - The interim trustee of Google LLC has discovered indications of deliberate bankruptcy at Google's Russian subsidiary, and the trustee posted the corresponding notification on Monday on the Fedresurs unified federal register of important information on legal entities and individual entrepreneurs.

The trustee said that it had not discovered signs of fraudulent bankruptcy.

The court initiated bankruptcy procedures regarding Google LLC at the end of November last year, and appointed Valery Talyarovsky as the company's interim trustee.

Following the first statements from foreign companies regarding their respective intentions to exit the Russian market owing to the events in Ukraine, the Russian authorities publicly warned foreign businesses that the local authorities would monitor possible cases of deliberate bankruptcies. "Each fact of termination of activity will be given a legal assessment for the presence of signs of fraudulent and/or deliberate bankruptcy, for which liability is stipulated in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation," the office of the Prosecutor General said in a statement dated March 11, 2022.

Google, part of Alphabet Inc. , has not announced plans to exit the Russian market completely, though its legal entity in the Russian Federation, having been subject to multibillion-dollar fines for various violations of the law, filed for bankruptcy in June last year.

According to the materials of the first meeting of Google LLC's creditors, which occurred on August 22, the company has financial obligations of nearly 20.2 billion rubles owed to creditors and competent authorities, with around 19.6 billion rubles owed to the Federal Tax Service.