You may have heard that a group of Chinese investors filed a fraud action here in Virginia against Governor McAuliffe and others for $17,920,000, plus punitive damages exceeding $53,000,000. Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed the case, finding that the allegations were insufficient to allow a jury to even consider the claim. Should you, dear reader, ever find yourself on the receiving end of a $71M fraud lawsuit, try to stay calm, and read my earlier blog post about what kind of facts are needed to make out a facially valid fraud claim. The plaintiffs in this particular case were unable to present such facts, so they lost. If a plaintiff cannot allege in good faith facts sufficient to satisfy each element of a fraud claim, the case will be dismissed no matter how much money is at stake.
According to the original complaint filed against Governor McAuliffe (it was originally filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court, then removed to federal court in Alexandria), the case was brought “to remedy a $120 million scam perpetrated by savvy and politically connected operatives and businessmen.” The Defendants allegedly offered–in exchange for a $500,000 investment from each plaintiff in an electric car company–to leverage their political connections to ensure that the plaintiffs’ visa applications would be approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Chinese investors claimed that McAuliffe lied about a number of things in order to secure those $500,000 investments: