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Liu, who was briefly arrested after a University of Minnesota
student accused him of rape last August, maintained his
innocence throughout the investigation, which ended in December,
with prosecutors declining to press charges.
The civil case brought by the student comes as the e-commerce
giant faces a backlash over layoffs and its work culture after
Liu railed against "slackers", with his social media backing
seeming to wane, in contrast to its support after his initial
arrest and release.
"Now it's coming to light how hard he's working people and
they're trying to cut staff ... Suddenly the sympathy can
evaporate pretty quickly," said Mark Natkin, a managing director
at Beijing-based tech consultancy Marbridge Consulting.
Earlier, people had been more willing to commiserate when the
business appeared to be going well and employees were being
treated well, he added.
Liu's accuser, identified in the civil lawsuit for the first
time as Liu Jingyao, a Chinese student at the U.S. university,
has sought undisclosed damages in a Minneapolis court from both
Liu and JD.com.
In a statement on Tuesday, Liu's attorney, Jill Brisbois, said,
"Based on the Hennepin county attorney's declination to charge a
case against our client and our belief in his innocence, we feel
strongly that this suit is without merit and will vigorously
defend against it."
She was referring to prosecutors who declined to charge Liu
after last year's investigation.
A lawyer for JD.com, Peter Walsh of Hogan Lovells, said it would
defend the company against the claims, which he described as "meritless".
On Wednesday, some of the highest-trending Weibo comments on the
new case contrasted the accusations with Liu's recent comments
that the number of "slackers" in his firm had grown.
"How did he find the time to commit such bad crimes in Minnesota
when he was working 996 hours?" said a Weibo user, whose posting
received more than 1,200 likes.
The reference is to a practice in the Chinese tech industry of
working 72-hour weeks, from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on six days, which
has figured in online debate and protests on some coding
platforms.
A JD.com spokesman has declined to comment on layoffs but said
the company was making adjustments as a normal part of business.
Another user joked that Liu himself was the company's "least
cost-effective" employee, with the arrest wiping out billions of
dollars in shareholder value.
Shares of JD.com are still down 4.5 percent from the period
before Liu was arrested. That is despite a slight rise this year
following last year's fall of about 16 percent, for a loss of
more than $7 billion in value in the week after his arrest.
"At that time it felt obvious to me that the woman sought to
make some money from the situation," said Gao Wei, a student in
the Chinese capital, whose posts defending Liu on messaging app
WeChat after his initial arrest drew hundreds of likes.
"I think there is a better understanding of Liu's character now
because of the 996 ... even though these are not directly
related issues," Gao, 22, told Reuters.
(Reporting by Cate Cadell; Additional Reporting by Beijing and
Shanghai Newsrooms; Editing by Tony Munroe and Clarence
Fernandez)
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