What just happened? Not for the first time, Russia is suing a US firm for a very large sum of money – though the lawsuit on this occasion comes from a company rather than its government. The $696,000 that VK wants from Apple for blocking its apps might not seem like a lot to the tech giant, but VK is asking for that amount every day. That would come to around $21 million per month, or $252 million per year.
VK, which was known as Mail.ru Group until 2021, filed the suit against Apple in a Moscow arbitration court after the US firm removed its apps from the App Store in June.
Apple removed several VK apps, including VKontakte, VK Messenger, VK Video, Zen, Mail Cloud, Mail, Skillbox, and Youla. Cupertino said it removed them to comply with EU sanctions imposed on VK and its subsidiary, Communication Platform LLC. The apps have also been removed from the Google Play Store.
The EU said the companies were involved in activities that enabled citizen surveillance, censorship, and the identification of individuals opposed to Russian government policies.
VK is asking the court to order Apple to restore its apps to the store. If it fails to comply, VK is requesting 50 million rubles, about $600,000 per day, for the continued blocking of its flagship VKontakte app, 5 million rubles, about $60,000, for VK Music, and 3 million rubles, around $36,000, for Odnoklassniki. If Apple does not comply, the company wants the daily fines to begin on the sixth day after the court issues its ruling.
VK wants the penalties imposed on Russia-based Apple Rus LLC, US-based Apple Inc., and Ireland-based Apple Distribution International Ltd.
The Kremlin said Apple's decision to remove the apps called into question the company's "reliability as a provider of commercial services."
Russia has a long history of taking Western technology companies to court, though many of the cases have involved government regulators imposing fines rather than Russian companies filing lawsuits.
Google has been the most prominent target. In 2022, a Russian court fined the company $373 million for failing to remove prohibited YouTube videos. Its Russian subsidiary subsequently filed for bankruptcy after authorities seized its bank account.
The most extreme example came in 2024, when 17 Russian television channels sued Google over YouTube blocking their accounts. Daily penalties that doubled every week eventually reached a hilarious $20.5 decillion, more than the value of the entire global economy. Russian media companies sought to enforce the rulings in Turkey, Hungary, Spain, South Africa, and other countries, but Google said it didn't expect the Russian legal proceedings to have a material effect on its business.
Russia has also filed a case against Meta, resulting in Facebook and Instagram being declared "extremist" and banned from operating in the country. Its courts and regulators have imposed penalties on Airbnb, Pinterest, Twitch, UPS, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter over data-storage rules, while Reddit, Apple, and the Wikimedia Foundation have been fined for refusing to remove content deemed illegal by Moscow.
Russia has often struggled to collect its largest and most headline-grabbing penalties, especially after Western companies withdrew from the country and local subsidiaries were closed or driven into bankruptcy. But Apple is a notable exception: in 2024, it paid a $13.65 million App Store antitrust fine, having previously paid another $12.12 million penalty. Whether VK will have similar success collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in accumulating daily fines remains to be seen.
Russian tech giant VK wants Apple to pay $696,000 every day until its apps return to the App Store
