> Wouldn't hacking be a criminal matter that's would be directly prosecuted by the government? Did they want to go against the hackers both criminally and civil

> Wouldn't hacking be a criminal matter that's would be directly prosecuted by the government? Did they want to go against the hackers both criminally and civilly? The Justice System in the US is ultimately centered around the Jury. To prove criminality, you need to convince the Jury that a crime was committed. And they are much more likely to empathize and agree with the prosecutors if they have a large number of American companies agreeing with the prosecutors that the Chinese entities stole from them.