Huawei has been all over the news and not in a good light in the United States. Their CFO, Meng Wanzhou was arrested last year in Canada and the US gave a ban on use of Huawei products.
Yesterday, the United States Department of Justice revealed that they are pursuing criminal charges against Huawei. The grand jury in Seattle charged Huawei with several counts, including 7 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to steal trade secrets, attempted theft of trade secrets and one count of obstruction of justice for Huawei’s alleged attempts to move potential witnesses back to China.
“As I told Chinese officials in August, China must hold its citizens and Chinese companies accountable for complying to the law,” the acting Attorney General Matthew G. Whitaker was quoted as saying in the presser.
In addition, Huawei’s CFO, Ms Meng Wanzhou, Huawei and its subsidiary Skycom Tech Co. were also charged with 13 counts of financial fraud in a federal court in Brooklyn. Meng is charged with bank fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud.
These are serious charges and Huawei has issued a communiqué on Twitter where they have denied all of the charges issued by the United States against the company.
“Huawei is disappointed to learn of the charges brought against the company today. After Ms. Meng’s arrest, the Company sought an opportunity to discuss the Eastern District of New York investigation with the Justice Department, but the request was rejected without explanation. The allegations in the Western District of Washington trade secret indictment were alread the subject of a civil suit that was settled by the parties after a Seattle jury found neither damages or willful malicious conduct on the trade secret claim.
The company denies that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations of the US law set forth in each of the indictments, is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms. Meng, and believes the U.S courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion.”
Huawei has come out defending their CFO, Ms. Meng as well as their subsidiary and they hope that the US courts will not find any wrong doing. This is something that will be unfolding in the coming days and we will see how it will turn out.
