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U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly on Tuesday rejected Huawei’s
request to dismiss the allegations in a 16-count federal
indictment against the company, saying in a 52-page ruling that
its arguments were premature.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
The U.S. accuses Huawei and some of its subsidiaries of plotting
to steal U.S. trade secrets, installing surveillance equipment
that enabled Iran to spy on protesters during 2009
anti-government demonstrations in Iran, and of doing business in
North Korea despite U.S. sanctions there.
During President Donald Trump’s first term in office, his
administration raised national security concerns and began
lobbying Western allies against including Huawei in their
wireless, high-speed networks.
In its January 2019 indictment, the Justice Department accused
Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell
equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions and charged its
chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, with fraud by misleading
the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.
Meng, the daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested in Canada
in late 2018 on a U.S. extradition request but released in
September 2021 in a high-stakes prisoner swap that freed two
Canadians held by China and allowed her to return home.
Chinese officials have accused the U.S. government of “economic
bullying” and of improperly using national security as a pretext
for “oppressing Chinese companies.” In their motion to dismiss
the broad criminal case, among other arguments Huawei's lawyers
contended that the U.S. allegations were too vague and some were
”impermissibly extraterritorial," and do not involve domestic
wire and bank fraud.
The biggest maker of network gear, Huawei struggled to hold onto
its market share under sanctions that have blocked its access to
most U.S. processor chips and other technology. The limits led
it to ramp up its own development of computer chips and other
advanced technologies.
The company also shifted its focus to the Chinese market and to
network technology for hospitals, factories and other industrial
customers and other products that would not be affected by U.S.
sanctions.
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