Chinese billionaire Richard Liu settles U.S. sexual assault lawsuit out of court

Richard Liu (刘强东 Liú Qiángdōng), Chinese tech billionaire and founder of ecommerce site JD.com, was accused of raping Liú Jìngyáo 刘静尧, a former University of Michigan student, in August 2018 and arrested by Minneapolis police. But he was released within hours, and prosecutors declined to charge him, saying that they could not prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  

Liu Jingyao then took him to court in a civil suit alleging rape, but Richard Liu has now agreed to settle out of court. The outcome has been described by the accuser’s supporters as a “collective victory” and a “pivotal” moment for China’s embattled #MeToo movement. 

The deal, which was revealed in a joint statement from attorneys for both sides, was made public on Saturday, just two days before the civil trial was scheduled to begin in a Minneapolis courtroom, where both Mr. Liu, 49, and Ms. Liu, 25, were expected to show up and testify. On Friday, a jury of seven men and five women were picked to hear the case.

“The incident between Ms. Jingyao Liu and Mr. Richard Liu in Minnesota in 2018 resulted in a misunderstanding that has consumed substantial public attention and brought profound suffering to the parties and their families,” the joint statement read. “Today, the parties agreed to set aside their differences, and settle their legal dispute in order to avoid further pain and suffering caused by the lawsuit.” 

The settlement, the conditions of which were kept confidential, concluded a long-running legal battle between Mr. Liu and Ms. Liu, who was a 21-year-old student in 2018 when she came forward with rape allegations against the entrepreneur, saying that he sexually assaulted her in her apartment after an alcohol-soaked business dinner arranged by JD.com. She alleged that the attack happened when the businessman was in Minneapolis for a weeklong residency in the University of Minnesota’s doctor of business administration China program, which was geared toward high-level executives in China. She had been recruited as a “volunteer” to attend a dinner for Mr. Liu and other executives.

Mr. Liu, who left his role as CEO of JD.com in April amid Beijing’s intensified crackdown on China’s technology industry, has always maintained that the sexual encounter was consensual. But Ms. Liu has insisted, from the time that she first reported the incident in 2018, that she was sexually assaulted. 

When Mr. Liu was released almost immediately after his arrest, Ms. Liu was “devastated.” She “couldn’t understand how it could happen,” Xiaowen Liang, a Chinese feminist activist and New York–based lawyer who has been following the lawsuit closely, told The China Project last week. She added that the prosecutors’ inaction needed to be understood in the context of Minnesota’s criminal justice system. 

“The reason that this could happen, one of the reasons, is that Minnesota is notorious for its very low conviction rate for rape. It’s not just this case, but it’s a historical issue. The Star Tribune recently reviewed more than 1,000 sexual assault cases in Minnesota and found that most of them are ‘being investigated poorly or not at all,’” she said. 

In 2019, Ms. Liu launched civil proceedings against Mr. Liu, seeking compensatory as well as punitive damages from him. She said in her lawsuit that she had to take a leave of absence from school in the fall of 2018 to seek counseling and treatment. Her attorney said she has since graduated but has post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Ms. Liu’s case garnered widespread attention and mixed reactions on Chinese social media at a time when the #MeToo movement was gaining traction in the country. Supporters of Ms. Liu praised her for standing up against the powerful entrepreneur, who founded JD.com in 1998, and who now has a net worth of $12 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. But as the lawsuit unfolded, such voices were largely silenced as Chinese censors shut down a number of social media accounts and removed comments that were in support of Ms. Liu. 

In the meantime, several surveillance videos seeking to discredit the rape allegations emerged and spread on the Chinese internet. Heavily edited to portray Ms. Liu as someone who set the billionaire up in the hopes of receiving monetary gains, the clips convinced many observers that Mr. Liu was innocent. 

Over the weekend, Mr. Liu released a separate statement to the Chinese media, in which he apologized for the “confusion” caused to everyone following the case, including his wife, Zhāng Zétiān 章泽天, a celebrity influencer. “I want to especially thank my wife for her forbearance, support, and company. Without her, I wouldn’t have been able to survive to this day,” Mr. Liu wrote. “We are welcoming a new life to our family and I will better cherish and protect my family. I wish everyone a better tomorrow!”

Ms. Liu, on the other hand, told the New York Times on Sunday that she was “okay” and hoped to focus on her studies. “I didn’t make it to the end, but that was all I could do,” the paper reported her as saying. She is currently in a graduate program at Washington University in St. Louis.

On Chinese social media, news of the settlement elicited strong reactions, with related hashtags racking up hundreds of millions of views on Weibo. While some internet users saw the outcome as a disappointment, with one typical comment saying, “I guess the truth doesn’t matter as long as everyone’s financial interests align,” advocates and longtime supporters of Ms. Liu greeted the news with cheers, saying that the settlement was a “win” for her and an implicit admission of guilt on Mr. Liu’s part.

“In the context of this case, settlement may have been Jingyao’s best option and also her right. By moving forward with the judicial process in the U.S., Jingyao was able to obtain an outcome that made the matter public,” read a statement put out by a group of supporters of Ms. Liu, who still showed up in front of the site of the court on Sunday with banners and posters. “She could have made a settlement in 2018, or she could have made a private settlement, but she chose to contribute her efforts to the #MeToo movement by disclosing it.”