Russian companies have begun to more actively sue Microsoft's subsidiary

Since the beginning of 2025, four lawsuits have been filed against Microsoft Rus (the Russian legal entity of Microsoft ) for a total of 110 million rubles, according to data from the COURT file. At the same time, for the whole of 2023, Russian companies filed lawsuits against this legal entity for a total of approximately 170 million rubles, for 2024 - for 26.6 million rubles, for 2022 - for 34.7 million rubles.

Among those who have sued the company in these years are Severstal, Sitronics, Uralkali, National Settlement Depository, VTB, MegaFon, and others. In January of this year, the list was expanded to include Gazprombank, which filed a lawsuit for 91 million rubles, the retailer Lenta (16 million rubles), the Medsi Group of Companies (2.1 million rubles), and the company Consist (960 thousand rubles).

On Wednesday, February 26, the court ordered Microsoft Rus to pay Lenta the amount specified in the lawsuit; hearings on the remaining new cases continue.

All claims are related to failure to fulfill contractual obligations after Microsoft left RUSSIA in 2022. In March of that year, the American corporation announced the suspension of sales of its products and services in connection with the start of a special military operation in Ukraine . Then, due to sanctions, the company stopped renewing subscriptions to Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams, Office, OneDrive, Sharepoint services) for corporate clients, disconnected a number of organizations from Russia from its Visio Online, Project Online and Power BI cloud services, and introduced other restrictions.

it follows from the case materials on the claims of Russian companies that Microsoft stopped providing support services under contracts from February 24, 2022 - from that moment until the end of the contract, services were not provided. At the same time, in April 2022, Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in a letter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the company would continue to cooperate with clients in Russia who were not subject to sanctions .

In 2022, Microsoft Rus laid off its staff, with the exception of two employees - the president and chief accountant, and terminated the office lease. However, the decision to liquidate the Russian legal entity has not yet been made. As of December 31, 2023 (the latest available data), the company had 139.6 million rubles in its accounts. Revenue for that year was 211.6 million rubles, net loss - 34.5 million rubles.

RBC sent a request to Microsoft.

The increase in the number of monetary claims against Microsoft may be due to the expiration of the statute of limitations, according to Albina Galimova, a leading lawyer in the dispute resolution practice at the EBR law firm. She explained that the general statute of limitations is three years, and Microsoft stopped fulfilling the terms of contracts in 2022. "When someone stops fulfilling the terms of a contract, the countdown begins for when a lawsuit can be filed. If this time expires, the court may refuse to satisfy the claims," ​​says Galimova.

The likelihood of satisfying the stated claims depends on each specific case and the fact of violation of Microsoft's contractual obligations, the lawyer believes. According to her, court decisions in favor of Microsoft clients indicate that the company unilaterally stopped providing technical support in 2022, despite receiving full prepayment under contracts, ignores any claims against them and does not actively participate in legal proceedings. Given the expiration of the statute of limitations in 2025, according to Galimova, the number of disputes will only increase.

Ekaterina Tokareva, a partner at Pen & Paper, said that four lawsuits were filed against Microsoft Rus this year, three in 2024, and 15 in 2023. She suggested that such a distribution could be related to negotiations with Microsoft Rus representatives and reaching some agreements. “For example, the parent company cannot pay off all the claims that arose in Russia at once and proposed a specific schedule for their repayment. At the same time, without a court decision, due to the current restrictions and sanctions, the parent company cannot direct funds to pay off the relevant debt. Apparently, a small budget was allocated for repayment for 2024. For 2025, it is significantly larger,” Tokareva reasons.

She noted that the chances of satisfying such claims are quite high "subject to the burden of proof." "Practice for such disputes has already been formed. Moreover, neither the defendant nor his representatives attend court hearings, do not file appeals, and accordingly, there is no one to object to the stated demands," Tokareva said.

She also estimates the probability of actual recovery of funds as high, based on the execution of previous court decisions by Microsoft Rus. "According to the database of enforcement proceedings, the company has no active enforcement proceedings, while the Kontur Focus database shows that enforcement proceedings were previously initiated, but at the moment they have all been paid off. Thus, it can be assumed that the company has fulfilled its obligations under all satisfied claims," ​​the lawyer explained.

RBC asked the companies that sued Microsoft Rus whether they had received the awarded payments.

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