US Justice Department Charges Chinese Company For Supplying Defective Masks And Misbranding Them As N95 Respirators

The United States (US) Justice Department has slapped a Chinese Company with stringent charges for supplying over 5,00,000 defective masks to the US and misbranding them as N95 respirators, reports Asian News International (ANI).

“A Chinese manufacturer was charged today with producing and exporting to the United States in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly half a million misbranded and defective masks that falsely purported to be N95 respirators,” the Justice Department said in a release on Friday (5 June).

The Justice Department had recently formed a new COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Grouping Task Force which identified the company and swung into action to impose charges on it.

“King Year Packaging and Printing Co. Ltd. (King Year) is charged by complaint with three counts of violating the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) for causing misbranded and substandard respirators that falsely purported to meet the N95 standard to be imported into the United States,” the release added.

King Year’s respirators also were embroidered with “N95,” even though they fell well below the minimum 95 percent filtration standard, it said.

“King Year’s misbranded and defective products had the potential to deceive U.S. consumers, including healthcare workers and first responders, into believing they were purchasing authentic N95 respirators, and put them at risk. To cover up the poor quality of its respirators, King Year disseminated false documents attesting to their authenticity and filed a fraudulent registration statement with the FDA,” the release said.

The company, for each of the counts, now faces a fine of up to $500,000 or the total gain or loss, whichever is greater, according to the release.

It should be noted that Chinese companies have repeatedly been slammed from nations worldwide for the supply of faulty testing kits, PPE coveralls, protective masks and other such equipment over the past months even as the world has been battling the pandemic.