United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

No. 21-7099 September Term, 2021

 FILED ON: MAY 10, 2022

BYD COMPANY LTD,

APPELLANT

v.

ALLIANCE FOR AMERICAN MANUFACTURING, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:20-cv-03458)

Before: HENDERSON, PILLARD, and KATSAS, Circuit Judges.

J U D G M E N T

This appeal was considered on the record from the United States District Court for the 

District of Columbia and on the briefs of the parties. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); D.C. Cir. R. 

34(j). The court has afforded the issues full consideration and has determined that they do not 

warrant a published opinion. See D.C. Cir. R. 36(d). For the following reasons, it is

ORDERED that the judgment of the district court be AFFIRMED.

BYD Company Ltd., a Chinese corporation, brings defamation claims against the Alliance 

for American Manufacturing and three of its employees. The claims before us arise from two short 

articles that the Alliance published on its website. The articles state that BYD benefits from forced 

labor and is controlled by the Chinese government. The district court dismissed the complaint for 

failure to plausibly allege that the Alliance published the articles with actual malice. BYD Co. v. 

Alliance for Am. Mfg., 554 F. Supp. 3d 1 (D.D.C. 2021). We affirm.

To establish defamation under D.C. law, a plaintiff must show, among other things, that 

the defendant made a false and defamatory statement and acted with the requisite level of fault. 

Beeton v. District of Columbia, 779 A.2d 918, 923 (D.C. 2001). For statements about a public 

figure, the fault standard is actual malice, which means the defendant made the statement “with 

knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Kahl v. 

Bureau of Nat’l Affairs, Inc., 856 F.3d 106, 116 (D.C. Cir. 2017) (quoting New York Times v. 
2

Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 280 (1964)). It is not enough that the defendant “should have known” that 

its statement was false; the defendant must have “in fact harbored subjective doubt” about the truth 

of its claim. Jankovic v. Int’l Crisis Grp., 822 F.3d 576, 589 (D.C. Cir. 2016). BYD concedes 

that it is a public figure for the purposes of this case. Thus, to survive a motion to dismiss, BYD

must allege facts that support a plausible inference of actual malice. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 

U.S. 662, 678 (2009). BYD’s complaint falls far short of that standard.

The first disputed article is titled “Some of the World’s Biggest Brands Depend on Forced 

Labor in China.” A. 442. It describes a think-tank report that accuses the Chinese government of 

sending members of its Uyghur population into forced labor. The article further states that “several 

known bad actors are also profiting from this forced labor, including ... Build Your Dreams

(BYD).” A. 443. BYD alleges that the report does not support this claim and that the Alliance 

must have known as much. But the report does support the claim. The report lists BYD as among 

the companies “directly or indirectly benefiting from the use of” forced labor. A. 412. And it

states that a subsidiary of BYD’s direct supplier uses over 100 forced laborers to make its products. 

A. 419. BYD further alleges that the Alliance is biased against foreign companies, but bias alone 

does not support an inference of actual malice. Tavoulareas v. Piro, 817 F.2d 762, 795 (D.C. Cir. 

1987) (en banc). Tavoulareas left open the possibility that ill will could support a finding of actual 

malice “when combined with other, more substantial evidence of a defendant’s bad faith.” Id. But 

BYD’s complaint makes no allegations of that sort.

The second article is titled “California has a $1 Billion Contract for PPE with BYD, a 

Company Controlled by the Chinese State.” A. 446. BYD contends that its status as a privately 

owned corporation is well known, which it says supports a plausible inference that the Alliance 

remained willfully blind. But the “failure to investigate will not alone support a finding of actual 

malice.” McFarlane v. Sheridan Square Press, Inc., 91 F.3d 1501, 1510 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (cleaned 

up). To raise an inference of actual malice based on willful blindness, BYD needed to allege 

something more, such as facts showing that the Alliance had “reason to doubt the veracity of its 

source.” Id. BYD’s sparse complaint makes no such allegations. In any event, a privately owned 

company may be controlled by a government, so knowledge that BYD was privately owned would 

suggest little if anything about a claim that the Chinese government effectively controlled it.

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment. Pursuant to D.C. Circuit Rule 

34, this disposition will not be published. The Clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the 

mandate until seven days after resolution of any timely petition for rehearing or petition for 

rehearing en banc. See Fed. R. App. P. 41(b); D.C. Cir. R. 41(a)(1).

Per Curiam

FOR THE COURT:

Mark J. Langer, Clerk

BY: /s/

Daniel J. Reidy

Deputy Clerk