A judge in the US state of Missouri has held the Chinese government liable for covering up the Covid-19 pandemic and also for engaging in “monopolistic action” to hoard personal protective equipment (PPE) during the global pandemic that killed more than 70 lakh people across the world since it emerged in 2019.
In his ruling, Judge Stephen N Limbaugh of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, also ordered the Asian giant to pay USD 24 billion in damages.
In 2020, the state of Missouri filed a lawsuit against the Chinese government; the Wuhan Institute of Virology, believed to be the epicentre of the pandemic; and other entities. The suit alleged that China “caused and exacerbated the Covid-19 pandemic by thwarting the production, purchasing, and import and export of PPE”, The New York Post said in a report.
It further accused Beijing of “nationalising American factories producing PPE and hoarding protective equipment manufactured or available for sale in the US”, the report added.
In his ruling on Friday, Judge Limbaugh said, “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. Plaintiff has submitted into the record substantial evidence demonstrating as much.”
He further said that “China had violated state and federal anti-monopoly laws”, and by doing so, the state of Missouri “suffered significant harm in the form of lost net general tax revenue” and “heightened PPE expenditures”.
“During the early months of the pandemic, Missouri spent millions more on PPE than it otherwise would have because of defendants’ hoarding,” the judge added.
As per reports, Missouri spent over $122 million more on PPE and lost more than $8 billion in tax revenue.
Welcoming the ruling, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey called it a “landmark ruling in the fight to hold China accountable for unleashing Covid-19 on the world”.
“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, a Republican, said and warned that he would work with President Donald Trump to “identify and seize Chinese-owned assets” to collect the USD 24 billion.
In a tweet on Saturday, the Missouri Attorney General said, “Hey China, You owe Missouri $24 billion.”
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said the Beijing government “does not and will not accept” the ruling.
“The so-called lawsuit has no basis in fact, law or international precedence. China does not and will not accept it. If China’s interests are harmed, we will firmly take reciprocal countermeasures according to international law,” the spokesperson said in an official statement.
The judgement comes almost 6 years after cases of the novel coronavirus were first detected in China in December 2019.
With the virus spreading rapidly to other countries across the world, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in January 2020 and characterised it as a pandemic two months later.
As of February 2025, there have been 7,087,718 confirmed Covid-19 deaths across the globe, making it the fifth-deadliest pandemic or epidemic in history.