Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey secured a $24 billion judgment against the Chinese Communist Party on Friday after a federal judge found the US adversary liable for damages related to the hoarding of personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a landmark victory for Missouri and the United States in the fight to hold China accountable for unleashing COVID-19 on the world,” the attorney general said in a statement.
Missouri sued the CCP, the Wuhan Institute of Virology and several other Chinese entities in 2020, alleging that China caused and exacerbated the COVID-19 pandemic by thwarting the production, purchasing, and import and export of PPE.
The lawsuit accused China of nationalizing American factories producing PPE and hoarding protective equipment manufactured or available for sale in the US.
“China’s campaign to hoard the global supply of PPE was performed in conjunction with its repeated misrepresentations on the existence, and then scope and human-to-human transmissibility of, the COVID-19 virus,” Missouri District Judge Stephen Limbaugh, Jr., wrote in his ruling. “Plaintiff has submitted into the record substantial evidence demonstrating as much.” --->READ MORE HERE
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The ruling comes five years after former Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed the original lawsuit in 2020
A federal judge on Friday ruled in favor of Missouri in the state’s $24 billion lawsuit against China’s Communist Party that accused it of hoarding protective supplies during the coronavirus pandemic.
"This is a landmark victory for Missouri and the United States in the fight to hold China accountable for unleashing COVID-19 on the world," Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement.
"China refused to show up to court, but that doesn’t mean they get away with causing untold suffering and economic devastation. We intend to collect every penny by seizing Chinese-owned assets, including Missouri farmland."
Bailey's office said the judgment was six times larger than the previous largest judgment in the state's history.
Judge Stephen Limbaugh said in his ruling that the "Court finds that Missouri has provided evidence satisfactory to the Court to establish each Defendant’s liability to Missouri under Count IV of Plaintiff’s Complaint. The Court therefore enters a judgment against Defendants, jointly and severally, in the amount of $24,488,825,457.00, plus postjudgment interest." --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to relevant/related stories and resources:
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