Several PRC-based companies raise money on US stock exchanges. That single act puts them in a position to take money away from Americans and send it to China to fund Communist Party of China ambitions. Those ambitions include rewarding Communist Party acolytes.

Didi, the ride sharing company that bought Uber’s PRC operations, listed shares in the United States three years ago. Within a week of its US listing, PRC officials pulled Didi’s operating authority. Americans lost millions of dollars. Unless the legal environment changes, Didi’s earlier investors will keep the money Americans lost.

US law should, instead, support battered Didi investors’ claims against not just the stock sellers but also against Didi’s promoters and stock owners who took money from the offering. It is highly unlikely if not impossible for any of that group not to know that the Communist Party was threatening to suspend Didi’s business license even before Didi’s US public offering. Board members, officers, and large investors in Didi know the Communist Party well and interact with its regulators frequently. Didi’s underwriters know Chinese officials and China’s operating conditions. Their prospectuses list so many risks buried in so many words that the prospectuses cloak the reality of risks to trusting Americans. The underwriters know better and write self-exculpating tomes to dodge responsibility. The stock sellers exploited an opportunity to take the money with globetrotting smiles.