BY: RUDI KELLER
Missouri Independent
Missouri will try to seize assets owned by China to collect a $24 billion default judgment in its case accusing the Asian nation of lying to the world about the COVID-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said.
U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh entered the verdict in March after China did not defend itself in the lawsuit. Speaking to reporters at her office Wednesday, Hanaway said she is working to compile a list of properties and other assets owned by government agencies named in the lawsuit.
“It’s been a long process for us to be able to enforce that judgment, but now we’ll enforce that judgment, much like any other judgment in this area,” Hanaway said.
The state will not try to take assets from companies owned by Chinese citizens or businesses, she said.
That would put the Smithfield Hog Production operation in north Missouri, previously known as Premium Standard Farms, off-limits. The farm is owned by China-based WH Group and is one of the most valuable Chinese-owned assets in the state.
“We can’t go after Chinese individuals or companies necessarily,” Hanaway said. “I might be proven wrong over time, but my belief is that we’ve got to go after those assets actually owned by China.”
In his ruling, Limbaugh wrote that China concealed the true nature of COVID-19 so it could stockpile protective gear that could limit spread of the virus.
“China’s pattern of actions strongly suggests that it had knowledge of the existence and human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus as early as September 2019,” Limbaugh wrote. “China’s actions also suggest that China engaged in a deliberate campaign to suppress information about the COVID-19 pandemic in order to support its campaign to hoard PPE from Missouri and an unsuspecting world.”
Limbaugh found that Missouri lost tax revenue due to the pandemic and will experience a long-term loss of revenue as well, accepting the $8.04 billion estimate for the period 2020 to 2051. He added the state’s increased cost for protective gear, estimated at $123 million, due to the hoarding and tripled the amount to set the final judgment.
The judgment is against the Chinese government, the Communist Party of China, several national agencies, provincial and local governments around Wuhan and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The first step toward collecting any part of the judgment will be getting a copy of the judgment, translated into Mandarin, and other documentation to the State Department via the federal court clerk, Hanaway said in a news release Wednesday evening.
Once the defendants are served, she said, the state will be back in court to identify assets it wants to seize.
The case was first filed by Eric Schmitt, who is now a U.S. Senator, and continued by Andrew Bailey, now co-deputy director of the FBI. Hanaway was appointed attorney general in September.
The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., issued a harsh statement about the judgment and Hanaway’s actions to collect.
The steps China took to limit the spread of infection and provide for its people “are acts of national sovereignty and are not subject to the jurisdiction of US courts,” spokesperson Liu Pengyu said. “The so-called pandemic compensation lawsuits fabricated by certain forces in the U.S. ignore basic objective facts and violate fundamental legal principles; they are purely malicious frivolous lawsuits and political manipulation, with extremely sinister intentions.”
China will not pay and will retaliate if necessary, Pengyu said, “to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests in response to the so-called lawsuits and judgments from the US.”