Google is dealing with a €110 million ($129 million) asset freeze in France after administrators of its shuttered Russian operations won temporary orders through French bailiff action. The measure, which obtained by Google Russia’s court-appointed judicial administrator, marks a rare attempt by Russian authorities to go after western companies’ assets overseas as tensions keep rising over frozen European holdings.
The administrator acting for Google Russia managed to lock down a freeze on shares belonging to Google International through legal channels in France, according to documents people have seen. This move stands out as an unusual seizure attempt that’s based on three Moscow arbitration court rulings that came out between 2024 and 2025.
William Julie, the lawyer representing the liquidator at French law firm WJ Avocats, said the enforcement action comes from a tribunal finding that called Google guilty of an illegal dividend payment back in 2021 worth something like 10 billion roubles (that’s about $126 million). Julie told reporters the Russian liquidator isn’t stopping at France—they’re pursuing the same thing in Spain, Turkey, and South Africa too.
The Paris bailiff wouldn’t talk about the proceedings, and Google, along with Google Russia’s administrator and the French government, didn’t respond to repeated Reuters requests asking for comment. The whole action involves assets that Google France holds, and it creates a temporary freeze that requires formal recognition proceedings to get launched within one month or else the freeze expires.
The French bailiff’s orders show this enforcement push relies on court rulings from Moscow arbitration courts, which work under international commercial law rules. These foreign arbitration decisions found Google on the hook for dividend payments that Russian authorities said were illegal during 2021, back when the tech company’s parent Alphabet—now worth $3.8 trillion in stock market value—still had real business going on in Russia.
What makes this situation messier is that Google now faces a potential fine from Russian officials over the past few years. Things got so bad that Google Russia ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2022 after Moscow seized its bank account, just months after Russia invaded Ukraine. The defunct company now works through a court-appointed administrator who sought the French asset freeze as part of liquidator work to get back funds for Russian creditors.
The process here represents what could be a bigger attempt by Moscow to use legal ways to challenge Western companies that left Russia. It’s a potential sign of how things might go for other businesses in similar spots.
Russia’s central bank is separately suing Brussels-based financial institution Euroclear, which holds huge amounts of frozen Russian assets in Europe. The lawsuit, filed in a Moscow court, adds more fuel to rising tensions around the use of seized Russian funds that various European authorities have thought about sending toward Ukraine reconstruction work.
This action shows how Russian officials are trying different legal routes to go after money they say belongs to them. Euroclear hasn’t said much publicly about the case, and government sources in Brussels have been quiet on what this means for the bigger picture of frozen Russian holdings across Europe.
French law requires the liquidator’s legal team to launch formal recognition proceedings in the coming days and notify Google France about the action. The Paris Judicial Court will then examine whether to grant a formal recognition and enforcement authorisation for the foreign arbitration rulings—a process that people familiar with these cases say could take up to a year-and-a-half to wrap up.
Google can challenge the temporary freeze with the enforcement judge while all this plays out. If the Paris court grants recognition, then the frozen funds could get seized to satisfy the Moscow tribunal’s judgements, Julie added. The Alphabet-owned company holds serious shares and assets all across Europe, so how this turns out matters a lot for other companies facing similar Russian claims.
The arbitration courts that issued the rulings operate under international commercial law frameworks that are regulated by established commercial standards. This setup creates potential pathways for enforcement across international borders, though it’s not simple or straightforward.
Means for Western Companies Operating Internationally
Government officials in Paris have to examine whether the Russian court rulings meet French standards for recognition. Documents the bailiff filed show the action goes after shares and assets belonging to Google International, though nobody’s saying exactly what value of frozen holdings we’re talking about here.
As tensions between Russia and Western nations keep going, this case represents a real test of how international legal channels might get used to pursue claims overseas when the world’s legal systems aren’t working together like they used to. The measure involves tricky legal questions about recognizing court decisions from Russia while keeping up European legal standards.
For you as a business owner or investor, this development shows how complicated things can get when companies pull out of countries during conflicts. The Russian judicial system is trying to use established legal mechanisms to reach assets in other countries, something that wasn’t common before. Whether courts in France, Spain, Turkey, or South Africa will actually grant these requests remains an open question that could create precedents for years to come.
