NEW ORLEANS, July 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — A new class action brought by Eduardo and Carmen Amorin on behalf of over 3,000 active U.S. homeowner litigants against Chinese defendants who sold drywall to American consumers has been filed in a Louisiana federal court.1 Attorneys for the new action have taken steps to force the Chinese into court, following action on July 17, 2014 by a U.S. District Court that held Chinese companies in contempt for attempting to flee jurisdiction.
Class representatives filed the new class action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Each was an active litigant in prior Omnibus Class Action Complaints.2 That action consolidated different suits into one proceeding known as a multi-district litigation. The new suit adds SASAC, the Chinese State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission in that litigation. Existing defendants include a group of companies that SASAC owns or controls known as the “Taishan Entities.”3 The suit seeks compensatory, statutory and punitive damages allowed by law as well as other relief against SASAC and the Taishan Entities arising out of their sale of defective drywall to American consumers across the United States.
“The suit has important implications as it will test whether Chinese government-owned companies who face adverse legal judgments will fire their attorneys and flee the jurisdiction of courts or respect the rule of law and judicial processes,” said lead counsel Arnold Levin of the Philadelphia-based law firm of Levin Fishbein Sedran & Berman. He said also: “This historic case raises grave legal and moral issues. Can those who do business with Chinese companies or the Chinese government trust them to keep their word or to honor their legal duties and responsibilities?”