Bankruptcy proceedings have been filed against the Russian division of the media company Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. On Monday, August 15, the Moscow Arbitration Court introduced the initial stage of bankruptcy – supervision – in the Russian legal entity Radio Liberty.

In early March, the Federal Tax Service (FTS) demanded that Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty LLC be declared bankrupt. It was proposed to do so under a simplified procedure without a follow-up phase, but in August the Federal Tax Service asked to proceed with bankruptcy in the usual way, explaining that the Russian legal entity Radio Liberty has “property that can be used to pay for bankruptcy proceedings”.

The company’s tax debt is about 7 million rubles, representatives of the Federal Tax Service said in court.

Billions of fines

Since 2021, Radio Liberty has been fined more than one billion rubles. Most of the fines, 988.5 million, were imposed by the courts due to the lack of labeling of the media as a “foreign agent” (Article 19.34.1 of the Offenses Code). Fines of another 75.8 million rubles were levied for refusing to remove materials about the war in Ukraine (Article 13.41 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).

Two days after the Federal Tax Service filed for bankruptcy and Radio Liberty’s website was blocked for covering the war in Ukraine, the media company suspended operations in Russia. “These Kremlin attacks on Radio Liberty’s ability to operate in Russia are the culmination of a years-long pressure campaign against RS, which has had a physical presence in Russia since 1991,” the media company’s management said.