Twitch Files Lawsuit Against League of Legends Pro Player Kirill Malofeev After Account Blockade

The streaming platform Twitch has filed a 25-page lawsuit against professional League of Legends player Kirill Malofeev, also known as Likkrit. Previously, the defendant won a case in a Russian court concerning the blocking of his Twitch account. This time, the company has brought the lawsuit to a court in San Francisco.

In March 2022, Twitch suspended the account of Konstanin Malofeev’s son, Kirill, following the onset of hostilities in Ukraine. This occurred shortly after the U.S. government imposed sanctions on several Russians, including Konstantin Malofeev, who was accused of money laundering and aiding Russia in evading sanctions. Kirill Malofeev also fell under these sanctions as the billionaire’s son.

U.S. authorities demanded that Twitch cease payments to Russian streamers, which the company communicated to its Russian users in March 2022.

In June and October 2022, Malofeev filed two lawsuits against Twitch, which the company deemed violations of its terms of service. The first lawsuit was dismissed by the court. In the second case, a Russian court ruled in favor of Malofeev, stating that Twitch and Amazon violated his rights by blocking his account and restricting monetization.

The court ordered Twitch to restore the account and pay a fine. The service refused to comply, leading to a daily increase in the fine by 100,000 rubles. In November 2022, a Russian court seized assets from Amazon and Twitch worth 3 billion rubles.

In 2023, Malofeev took legal action in a Turkish court to enforce the Russian court’s decision, targeting Amazon’s local office. Twitch emphasized that Malofeev had an agreement with them, not with Amazon.

Currently, the amount being sought exceeds «all the money in the world,» according to Twitch’s lawyers. They argued that the fine is unwarranted and grossly disproportionate to Malofeev’s earnings while his account was active.

Twitch hopes that the U.S. legal system will prevent the enforcement of the Russian court’s ruling and compel arbitration, as stipulated in the terms of service agreements signed by all Twitch users.