The Missouri attorney general promises to seize Chinese assets in the state if necessary to settle what he hopes is an unprecedented $25 billion judgment against China for “causing and exacerbating” the COVID-19 pandemic.
A judge Monday heard evidence from AG Andrew Bailey’s office that the deadly virus escaped China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, and that the Chinese government further proceeded to hoard and hinder the availability of personal protective equipment and other tools to fight its spread.
The bench trial remarkably lasted only about one hour because China declined to appear in the lawsuit, which was filed in April 2020 to recover damages for harm to Missouri residents.
“Today, we hauled China into court to hold them accountable for unleashing COVID-19 on the world,” Bailey said in a statement afterward. “Missouri is the only state in the nation to file suit to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for causing and exacerbating COVID-19.
“The judge was engaged in our arguments and asked detailed questions. We feel confident that we will collect on the $25 billion we’re demanding in damages. And if China refuses to pay up, we will seize Chinese assets instead.”
The statement continues, “The Court today stated Attorney General Bailey presented ‘an abundance of uncontroverted evidence’ that China harmed Missourians by unleashing COVID-19 on the world. The judge expressly shared he is inclined to rule in Missouri’s favor.”
Bailey added in a post on X that, “If they don’t pay up, we’ll start seizing Chinese assets – like farmland – instead.”
The landmark lawsuit, filed by then-AG and now U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt, argued that China was responsible for the spread of COVID as well as for hoarding protective gear. The lawsuit was initially dismissed by U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh in July 2022, who said in his ruling that he had no jurisdiction over a foreign government on either claim.
However, the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals revived the hoarding claim, saying it constituted commercial activity open to anti-competitive allegations.
“The Eighth Circuit,” writes the Transnational Litigation Blog, “considered the hoarding claim part of Missouri’s larger theory ‘that China leveraged the world’s ignorance about COVID-19,’ and it characterized ‘[t]aking over mask-producing factories and buying up a substantial portion of the world’s supply of personal-protective equipment’ as commercial in nature.”
The appeals court panel, the Transnational blog explains, allowed Missouri’s claim to go forward that China’s hoarding actions served to “raise the cost of masks and impede patient treatment in Missouri.”
The appeals court dismissed the state’s claim regarding China’s actions to spread the virus, ruling “no direct causal chain exists here.”
