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This article below says that Google has been fined $20 decillion USD in Russia due to a failure to reinstate state-owned YouTube channels: Russian court fines Google $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Why this is even possible? This value is around 1,000 times (I think) larger than the entire global GDP.

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    Re: "is around 1,000 times … larger", correction suggested: World's GDP is roughly $100 trillion (1*10^14). $20 decillion is 2*10^34, which is 2*10^20 (200,000,000,000,000,000,000 or two hundred quintillion) times larger than the combined GDP of an Earth-like civilization.
    – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine
    Commented Oct 31 at 7:13
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    It's certainly possible to order such a fine. However, the possibility of collecting such a fine (or, in this case, any fine) is a very different matter. Sovereign nations can make whatever laws and issues whatever orders under those laws they want. However, their ability to enforce such orders outside of their borders is an entirely different matter and only tangentially related to law. About the only way Russia will collect this fine is if the United States prints 2 undecillion counterfeit rubles and hands them to Google to pay the fine and obliterate Russia's entire economy.
    – reirab
    Commented Oct 31 at 8:11
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    Note the following sentence your linkd article: "The court imposed a fine of 100 thousand rubles ($1,025) per day, with the total fine doubling every week." I'm fairly sure this is perfectly legal and I think such daily increasing fines are used in other contexts as well. They are usually paid off quickly, which is the whole point of the increasing fine.
    – quarague
    Commented Oct 31 at 10:41
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    @quarague Daily increasing fines are one thing. Weekly multiplying ones are quite another. Granted, a sovereign nation can still do that. And someone outside of its jurisdiction can still ignore it.
    – reirab
    Commented Oct 31 at 15:43
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    "Why this is even possible?" You're assuming that a legal system makes sense. Few of them manage that consistently, but ones in a dictatorship hardly ever.
    – John Dallman
    Commented Oct 31 at 20:04

2 Answers 2

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Of course. Google could pay it off for a long time.

There are often cases where either a prison sentence vastly exceeds human life expectancy or where a fine exceeds the ability of the convict to pay. There are two possible reasons for this:

  • The court wants to make sure that even if the sentence is reduced later on, the reduction happens from a very high baseline. To give a simple and almost-reasonable example, say a release for good conduct is possible after half the sentence in some jurisdiction. If everybody knows this, then "four years" would be understood as "two years, with good conduct."
  • The legal system adds multiple parts of the sentence, like "twice ten years, served consecutively" becoming "twenty years." Each individual sentence attempts to be fair and then simple, heartless arithmetic takes over. By contrast, see the German system where multiple terms are turned into "more than the largest single sentence, no more than the sum of all sentences, and in any case no more than 15 years."

Or it is all theatrics, and everybody knows it is all theatrics.

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    Perhaps Google will suggest paying one dollar per year?
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Oct 30 at 22:20
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    @JonCuster: Perhaps Google will declare the US government forbids paying any fine; which leads to a very different kind of question.
    – Joshua
    Commented Oct 31 at 4:58
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    @Joshua, that should not change a thing. If Russia fines Google, Russia can confiscate Google assets in their jurisdiction and request other jurisdictions to help. That cooperation is not automatic, even among largely allied nations.
    – o.m.
    Commented Oct 31 at 5:41
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    @o.m. Which assets in Russia? Goggle LLC (Russia) has filed for bankruptcy 2 years ago (in 2022) with debts of 19 billion rubels and only 3-ish billion rubels assets. The rest of Alphabet group is geofencing and blocking account creation from Russia. Almost no country but Russia willingly enforces a judgment from Russia.
    – Trish
    Commented Oct 31 at 16:39
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    Now now, I suspect that North Korea is more than willing to seize all of Google's assets in ... ummm ... wait ... well, I guess they won't get much...
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Oct 31 at 20:22
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As the article itself states:

The court imposed a fine of 100 thousand rubles ($1,025) per day, with the total fine doubling every week

This is the apocryphal wheat on a chessboard story coming to life. In the original story, the inventor of chess supposedly asked for one grain were placed on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, and so on, doubling every square of the board. The chessboard has 64 pieces, and the theoretical fine has doubled over 104 weeks.

Legally, the fine is still only 100,000 rubles. By paying that, Google can declare they've paid it. There is no enforcement mechanism for any fines not spelled out as a specific number, other than a new trial, where the original judgement will be re-examined.

If there is trial about the exact amount due, civil law usually restricts late payment penalties to 0.1% per day. Russian law seems to follow this rule, with possibly an even stricter 20% per annum limit.

Assuming the war ends by October 23, 2077, the fine by then will be $28.6 billion under the 0.1% per day rule, or a disappointing $23.2 million under the 20% p.a. limit. If, on the other hand, the doubling per week rule holds, the fine will be 2.26e+863, or 226 sexoctogintaducentillion. You will need a cookie clicker expert to spell it out properly.

And if this judgement was a deliberate joke on Google's name, we can estimate that the fine will reach 1 googol or 10^100 rubles by November 20, 2029.

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    Important distinction: is the fine in rubles or dollars? Perhaps with rampant enough inflation/devaluation, a googol ruble fine could be reasonably payable in 2029
    – fyrepenguin
    Commented Nov 1 at 3:01
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    It's an interesting post, but it doesn't answer the question. What's the legal mechanism under which a company can be fined such a large amount in Russia? Also, your link to the 20% limit has nothing to do with the question: it's about penalties for late loan repayments, not court imposed fines.
    – JBentley
    Commented Nov 1 at 10:29
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    @JBentley There is no legal mechanism. The fine is ~$1,000, and the addendum about doubling it weekly is contrary to established practice for late payment penalties, which means it would most likely not be respected in a new trial against a new legal entity, should Google return to Russia.
    – Therac
    Commented Nov 1 at 12:20
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    @Therac If your claim is now that "the decillion-dollar fine doesn't exist" (i.e. you are claiming that the media articles are wrong in the way they described the judgment) then you should cite the parts of the judgment which show that. So far you just seem to be giving various personal opinions but without any legal substance.
    – JBentley
    Commented Nov 2 at 19:03
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    @Therac Capital punishment is also not allowed in Russia, and yet Navalny is still dead.
    – Acccumulation
    Commented Nov 2 at 19:06

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