Judicial Overreach

A particularly contentious aspect of the U.S. legal system is the regular attempts by its courts to assert jurisdiction over disputes occurring entirely or partially outside U.S. territory, and their application of U.S. law in these cases. In extraterritorial domains and areas of shared sovereignty—such as the high seas and outer space—U.S. courts have repeatedly claimed that U.S. law takes precedence over the legal authority of other nations. As a result, many foreign governments and transnational actors characterize the U.S. as a “judicial bully.”

On March 7, Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri rendered a default judgment against the People’s Republic of China and eight other Chinese entities, ordering over $24 billion in compensation. The judgment was based on allegations that these nine entities hoarded personal protective equipment (PPE) during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, violating federal and state antitrust laws of the U.S. The district court’s assertion of extraterritorial jurisdiction in its judgment gives rise to significant legal issues.

First, the court’s judgment lacks a sufficient factual foundation. The court erroneously treated the nine defendants as an undifferentiated collective, uniformly labeling them “China.” This misapprehension is legally flawed because, as the defendants lacked common intent and concerted action, they cannot be held liable as a single entity. In particular, the court’s determination that the defendants concealed the epidemic situation or hoarded epidemic prevention materials such as masks lacks factual evidence and is entirely unfounded. Since January 3, 2020, China has been regularly and proactively providing epidemic information to the World Health Organization, related countries and regional organizations, with no facts concealed regarding the pandemic. From January 2020 to May 2022, China supplied over 4.6 billion protective suits, 18 billion testing kits and 430 billion masks to 153 countries, including the U.S., and 15 international organizations, demonstrating no facts of hoarding epidemic prevention supplies.

Second, the compensation awarded in the judgment is absurd. Relying on a Missouri-submitted expert report on damages, the court concluded that between 2020 and 2051, Missouri suffered and will suffer $8.04 billion in tax revenue losses due to the alleged impact of “China’s hoarding of PPE” on economic activity. The court further found that such hoarding compelled Missouri to incur an additional $122,941,819 in PPE expenditures during the pandemic. Applying federal and state antitrust laws permitting triple damages, the court aggregated these amounts and tripled them, resulting in a total damages award of $24,488,825,457.

As some American scholars have pointed out, the damage calculations appear fanciful. The opinion fails to conduct a rigorous analysis of causation. How can one isolate the impact of China’s alleged PPE hoarding on Missouri from other pandemic-related factors—such as Missouri’s status as one of the last states to implement a stay-at-home order? Establishing the causal link between the “hoarding” and Missouri’s economic decline, and derivatively its subsequent tax revenue losses, is fraught with complexities, particularly when projections extend to the year 2051. The court forcibly established a causal link between two completely unrelated facts, which is utterly absurd.

Third, the judgment is unenforceable in practice. One U.S. law relevant to the case is the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which provides a framework for determining when a foreign state is subject to the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Section 1606 of the FSIA explicitly states, “A foreign state, except for an agency or instrumentality thereof, shall not be liable for punitive damages.”

Foreign states are usually immune from lawsuits in U.S. courts. Critically, immunity from execution of court rulings is more extensive than immunity from suit and it has not been determined which of the defendants are immune or whether they have property in the U.S. that could be subject to the execution of Missouri’s ruling. (Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced his intention to begin collecting the award by seizing Chinese-owned assets in the state—Ed.) For this reason, it seems unlikely Missouri will see a penny of the $24 billion awarded.

Fourth, the legal validity of U.S. courts’ extraterritorial jurisdiction remains a subject of profound contention—both on the international stage and within the U.S. legal system itself. International legal experts widely regard such unilateral judgments against sovereign states as a flagrant violation of the “principle of sovereign immunity” under international law, rendering them fundamentally unenforceable under international legal frameworks. Domestically, recent U.S. discourses—encompassing both academic and judicial spheres—have converged on the application of a pivotal judicial doctrine: the “presumption against extraterritoriality.” This doctrine holds that, in the absence of explicit congressional intent to the contrary, U.S. laws should be presumed to apply solely within U.S. territory. Such debates are further illuminated by an expert’s pointed critique of the Missouri judgment: “To evaluate cases like this, we must consider what it would be like if the shoe were on the other foot. In 2021, the U.S. and other Western nations faced accusations of hoarding COVID-19 vaccines. Would the U.S. have accepted being subject to litigation in China or other countries merely for prioritizing its own public health needs?”

Finally, foreign states may choose to express their outrage over U.S. judicial extraterritoriality through multifaceted strategies. Diplomatic démarches and amici curiae filings (briefs providing expertise submitted to courts by individuals or organizations that have an interest in the case but are not party to the case—Ed.) are just the first salvos, the real fight lies in aggressive countermeasures. For instance, nations will greenlight domestic parallel litigation to create conflicting rulings, or even outright refuse cooperation with U.S. attempts to enforce extraterritorial judgments. In the 1980s, governments including the United Kingdom and Australia legislated bans on “voluntary” compliance within their territories with extraterritorial disclosure orders (commands to produce evidence for U.S. judicial proceedings—Ed.), while publicly funding fines for entities held in contempt of U.S. courts. Confronted with such a legally flawed judgment, China is not without countermeasures. By invoking statutes such as the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (2021) and the Law on Countering Unjustified Extraterritorial Application of Foreign Legislation (2022), China could impose targeted sanctions against U.S. judges, attorneys and institutions involved, as consequences of their judicial overreach. Beyond this, this U.S. action could trigger an international “wave of reciprocal lawsuits,” whereby states may lawfully bring claims against the U.S. for its pandemic-related liabilities, including those arising from AIDS and H1N1 swine flu, potentially escalating into a global “legal arms race.” In short, the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ordering China to pay $24.49 billion in damages is nothing short of a legal farce.

The author is a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) and deputy director of the school’s Human Rights Research Center.