A bizarre legal dispute has hit Amazon’s streaming service Twitch: In the wake of sanctions against Russia, Twitch has de-monetized a former professional player of League of Legends. However, the Russian judiciary deemed this unlawful and intends to force Twitch to lift the sanction against the former LoL professional. The fine aimed at compelling Twitch started small but has been increasing steadily.
This is the former LoL professional in question: Former LoL professional Kirill Konstantinovich Malofeyev (29) is known as Likkrit. He played until 2017 and then became a Twitch streamer. He has earned approximately $66,000 in prize money from LoL.
There aren’t many successful Russian e-sport players in LoL: Actually, they mostly play DOTA 2 by Valve. Russian e-sport players have earned a total of $39 million with DOTA 2, $15.5 million with CS:GO, and only $1.5 million with LoL (via esportearnings).
Likkrit is the son of Russian oligarch Konstantin Valeryevich Malofeev, who comes from the finance sector and now heads a media group.
This is the situation: In March 2022, Amazon, as part of the U.S. sanctions against Russia, deprived all Russian Twitch streamers of the ability to earn money through the platform. Effectively, they were banned and had their means of earning a living through Twitch taken away.
The streamer and oligarch’s son Likkrit found the ban unjust and sued Twitch in a 25-page complaint at a Russian court in June and October 2022. The first lawsuit was dismissed, but the second one was accepted.
Russian court imposes fine on Twitch that doubles every week
This verdict was reached: The court ruled that Twitch and Amazon are violating Russian rights by “de-monetizing” the streamer.
Therefore, the Russian court demanded that Twitch restore the account, or else Twitch must pay a penalty for failing to comply with the judgment.
The penalty amount is 100,000 rubles, and with each day that the account remains unreinstated, an additional 100,000 rubles are added. 100,000 rubles is approximately 1,100 euros.
But the amount also doubles with each week, and this continues without limit. More than two years have passed since the verdict, meaning the amount has already doubled more than 100 times – the penalty payment is thus now unimaginably large.
In 2023, the oligarch’s son tried to enforce the Russian court ruling through a law in Turkey and delivered a corresponding letter to Amazon’s Turkish branch. Twitch counters that the original business relationship of the streamer was formed with Twitch, not Amazon, and hence the letter in Turkey is irrelevant.
Twitch says: Streamer earned only $2,000 per month – penalty amount is absurd
This is what Twitch’s lawyers say:
Since this penalty doubles every week, it is now allegedly higher than all the money in the world. The enforcement of this amount is in no way justified and is disproportionate to the less than … $2,000 in revenue that Malofeyev’s account generated while he was active.
Twitch is now trying to oppose the enforcement of this amount through the U.S. justice system.
You might as well give it a try. Twitch has been sued repeatedly in the past, but through the American legal system, which is also known for imposing large penalties, although not of this magnitude: Twitch is being sued for $25 million – Due to too sexual content
The title image is from Likkrit’s active time as a LoL professional.
