MOSCOW, April 9 (RAPSI) – A court in the Crimean city of Sevastopol dismissed a lawsuit filed after US companies, including PayPal, Google, and Apple, suspended their operations on the peninsular under the sanction regime against Russia, TASS reported on Thursday.

Mishin filed a lawsuit after the US-based company blocked AdSense and AdWords accounts and the Google Play app in Crimea. Google cited the US President’s Executive Order No. 13685 of December 19, 2014, Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to the Crimea Region of Ukraine.

“Sanctions have recently been imposed on Crimea by the US and the EU. We are complying with them,” a Google spokesperson said in January.
Mishin argued that the order did not specifically mention Sevastopol, which has always been an independent administrative and territorial entity.

He appealed to the court to require that Google resume the operation of its Google Play mobile application in Sevastopol, collect 10,000 rubles ($185) in compensation and fine Google 5,000 rubles ($92.50).

Mishin has not yet decided if he will file an appeal against the court’s decision.

The presiding judge announced the decision but not the reasons behind it. The final ruling will be issued no later than April 25.

Google blocked AdSense and AdWords accounts in Crimea on January 23 and the Google Play app and Chrome updates on January 29.

Dmitry Mishin, an IT attorney from Sevastopol, claims the US-based company blocked the Google Play mobile application illegally. He filed a lawsuit against it with the Leninsky District Court in February. A pretrial hearing was held on March 24. A Google attorney said at the hearing that a trial on the sanctions should be transferred to the United States.