MOSCOW, March 23 (RAPSI) – The Moscow Commercial Court on Wednesday upheld the ruling of the Federal Antimonopoly Service’s (FAS) Moscow office to fine Google and Mail.ru for violating Russian advertisement legislation.

On February 19, Google was fined 150,000 rubles ($1,973) while Mail.ru was fined 100,000 rubles ($1,315).

According to FAS, abovementioned online companies have violated Russian legislation by distributing “Ruscredit” bank’s advertisement in Google AdWords and myTarget systems because during the period when advertisement was active Ruscredit had no official banking license.

Russian legislation prohibits advertisement of products requiring special licenses to be produced or distributed if said licenses are absent. On this basis, FAS claimed that Google, Mail.ru and Ruscredit are guilty of violating advertisement law.