A Moscow court fined Google nearly USD 100 million over its failure to delete content banned by local law, a penalty that reflects Russian efforts to step up pressure on big technology companies.

The Tagansky District Court ruled that Google repeatedly neglected to remove the banned content, and ordered the company to pay an administrative fine of about 7.2 billion rubles (about $98.4 million). Google said it would study the court documents and then decide on its next steps.