Google faces $129 million French asset freeze after Russian ruling, documents show
Written by: Leo Marchandon, Inti Landauro and Gleb Bryanski
PARIS/MOSCOW – The head of Google’s defunct Russian business has secured a temporary freeze on nearly 110 million euros of the Alphabet-owned company’s assets in France, according to official orders seen by Reuters.
The move represents a rare attempt by Russian authorities to use legal channels to target the assets of western companies abroad, amid growing tensions over the potential use of seized Russian assets in Europe.
Russia’s central bank is also suing Euroclear, the Brussels-based financial institution that holds most of the frozen Russian assets, in a Moscow court.
The injunction against Google France covers shares of Google International and was sought by Google Russia, acting through the court-appointed judicial administrator.
The French bailiff declined to comment. Google, the head of Google Russia and the French government did not respond to repeated requests for comment from Reuters.
The French bailiff’s orders indicate that his action was based on three decisions made between 2024 and 2025 by Moscow arbitration courts governed by international trade law.
A Russian court found Google guilty of paying illegal dividends worth nearly 10 billion rubles in 2021, said William Julie, a lawyer representing the liquidator of French law firm WJ Avocats.
The Russian liquidator is also pursuing enforcement in Spain, Türkiye and South Africa, Julie said.
Google, whose parent Alphabet has a stock market value of about $3.8 trillion, faces multiple fines from Moscow, while Google Russia filed for bankruptcy in 2022, months after Russia invaded Ukraine, when authorities seized its bank account.
GOOGLE MAY RESULT IN TEMPORARY FREEZING
The French bailiff’s order amounts to a temporary freeze, and French law requires lawyers to initiate formal recognition proceedings within a month or the freeze expires.
Julie said that these documents will be presented to the court in the coming days and Google France will also be informed.
Julie said that the Paris Judicial Court will then consider whether to grant official recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitration awards, a process that could take up to a year and a half.
Google may object to the temporary freezing decision before the enforcement judge. Julie added that if recognition and enforcement authority is granted, frozen funds may be seized to enforce the arbitration court’s decisions.
This article has been generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to the text.
