Class Action Alleges China’s ‘Cover Up’ of COVID-19 Cost Small U.S. Businesses Trillions in Damages

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A group of California companies has filed a proposed class action lawsuit in which they allege the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has cost U.S. small businesses trillions in monetary damages by covering up and generally contributing to the spread of the novel coronavirus around the world.

The case, filed in California’s Central District, looks to cover all small businesses in the United States that have sustained, “among other things, financial/monetary damages and/or losses related to the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.” The plaintiffs allege the PRC and its co-defendants owed to small U.S. businesses a duty to “not act negligently in their management and handling of the COVID-19 outbreak” so as to reasonably prevent the spread of the virus. 

The latest in a string of proposed class action litigation filed against the PRC, the 27-page complaint alleges that China and its governmental co-defendants knew of the calamitous threat posed by the novel coronavirus as early as November 2019. The plaintiffs—two California real estate companies, a small business advocate and a Vietnamese charitable funding organization—claim that despite possessing knowledge of the contagiousness of the virus and China’s responsibility to share what it knew with the international community, the defendants downplayed the severity of the situation, engaging in “a campaign of falsehoods, misinformation, cover-up and destruction of evidence,” while assuring the world that everything was under control. 

“Instead of disclosing this evidence, the PRC and the other Defendants engaged in a campaign of misinformation and lies,” the plaintiffs allege, claiming that China “intimidated doctors, scientists, journalists, and lawyers” and ordered the destruction of medical testing data, among other measures.

To date, more than one million small businesses—i.e. those with fewer than 500 employees—have been forced to close or substantially reduce their operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the lawsuit says. According to the plaintiffs, China’s conduct in the run-up to and throughout the pandemic is to blame for the “unprecedented” COVID-19 health crisis and resulting global economic recession.

The defendants, the plaintiffs allege, breached their duty to small businesses nationwide and the greater global community by failing to admit their knowledge of the novel coronavirus early on, contain the virus in its early stages, restrict public gatherings of more than 40,000 Wuhan families when they possessed knowledge of the virus, and provide “adequate and reasonable warnings” and supervise the outbreak after being warned by the medical community. 

Moreover, the plaintiffs allege that small U.S. businesses have been harmed as a direct and proximate result of the “ultra-hazardous activity” at the PRC’s National Biosafety Laboratory near Wuhan and a reported “wild animal marketplace,” where some have theorized the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 originated. 

In addition to the People’s Republic of China, the plaintiffs name as defendants China’s Ministry of Emergency Management and Ministry of Community Affairs; the People’s Government of Hubei Province; and the People’s Government of the City of Wuhan, China. According to the complaint, there are more than 32 million small businesses in the U.S., with more than 177,000 of those existing within California alone.

ClassAction.org’s coverage of lawsuits centered on the COVID-19 pandemic can be found here and over at our Newswire.

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