Using a new reading of the “commercial activity” exception to a 50-year-old US law that generally blocks lawsuits against foreign governments, a federal court awarded Missouri US$24 billion in March, saying China’s early-pandemic hoarding of masks and gloves was market behaviour, not a sovereign act.
In November, a federal judge in Mississippi issued a similar US$25 billion judgment based on antitrust and consumer protection claims.
Experts say that while attorneys general in both states have vowed to seize Chinese assets, the process is riddled with complex legal barriers that make execution virtually impossible and the dispute has escalated.
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WHO ends Covid-19 mission in Wuhan, says lab leak ‘extremely unlikely’
WHO ends Covid-19 mission in Wuhan, says lab leak ‘extremely unlikely’
