MOSCOW, January 15. /TASS/. American tech giant Amazon and 10 other foreign legal entities face a turnover-based fine for an administrative offense related to not having a representative office in Russia, an official from the magistrate court department No. 422 told TASS.

"The court received protocols on an administrative offense drawn up under Part 2 of Article 13.49 (carrying out activities on the Internet by a foreign legal entity on the territory of the Russian Federation without posting an electronic form for sending appeals from Russian citizens and organizations, or without creating a branch, or opening a representative office, or establishing a Russian legal entity) in relation to Amazon, HostGator.com LLC, Bluehost Inc., Kamatera Inc., Ionos Inc., Network Solutions LLC, DigitalOcean LLC, DreamHost LLC, GoDaddy.com LLC, WPEngine, Inc.," the court official said.

The official added that a hearing on these protocols is scheduled for January 17. According to the law, under this article, legal entities face a fine equal to 1/15 to 1/10 of total revenue for the calendar year.

Amazon has repeatedly been fined in Russia for refusing to remove prohibited information. In October 2022, the US company was fined 3 million rubles ($33,842) for refusing to remove a repost on an Amazon-related social network from the Hydra website (banned in the Russian Federation), which contains information about the manufacture and sale of drugs. Also in the fall of 2022, Amazon was fined 1 million rubles ($11,228) for publishing content promoting suicide on its platform.