Huawei is the subject of a new complaint from the United States. Washington accuses the firm and two of its subsidiaries of federal racketeering and conspiracy to steal industrial secrets from U.S. companies. This new complaint paints a picture of a company that has meticulously organized large-scale industrial espionage.
The American newspaper The New York Times reports that Washington has launched a new case against Huawei and two of its subsidiaries. The United States this time accuses the firm of "federal racket" and conspiracy in order to steal industrial secrets of American companies. The federal racketeering charge is related to a U.S. law that has historically been used to confuse gang leaders and authorize the Prosecution Service to add charges that would not otherwise be possible.
Huawei's alleged "conspiracy" is said to be linked to activities that have been going on since 1999. As for the theft of industrial secrecy, according to the complaint, it is based on events in six American companies that are not directly named in the documents. However, according to The New York Times, these are Cisco Systems, Motorola Solutions, Fujitsu, Quintel Technology, T-Mobile and CNEX Labs. Huawei has already had legal troubles with some of these companies.
U.S. steps up pressure against Huawei
For example, Cisco, which manufactures network equipment, sued Huawei in 2003 – accusing the firm of violating many of its patents and copying the source code of its software and documentation. The complaint was dropped last year after getting Huawei promising changes to the affected products. Quintel sued Huawei in 2015, accusing the firm of stealing its antenna technology. The deal closed in 2018. Motorola ended intellectual property infringement proceedings in 2011.
The complaint portrays a company that has meticulously organized and orchestrated a campaign to steal industrial secrets. The New York Times cites an allegation that in 2004 an employee of the firm interfered in an exhibition in Chicago to steal a competitor's technology. The employee "was discovered in the middle of the night after the exhibition closed in the pavilion of a technology company," the complaint states.
The man, who was wearing a badge that claimed his employer's name was "Weihua" (Huawei in verlan)was reportedly caught while "removing the panel from network equipment and taking pictures of the circuits inside." Another episode cited by the New York Times, Huawei's "countermeasures" against a competing company specializing in storage.
Huawei allegedly convinced the firm's managers to come and make a presentation on their projects, then asked them for a copy of the slides before transmitting them "immediately" to the engineers of a subsidiary working on a competing product. This new complaint adds weight to the position of the United States in its trade war with China, and increases the pressure on Huawei, already subject to very restrictive sanctions.
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The complaint is in addition to another, in which Washington accuses Huawei of violating sanctions against Iran. For Huawei, these new accusations are "unfounded and unfair." The firm accuses the United States of wanting to "irrevocably damage Huawei's reputation and activities, for reasons related to competition,"and adds that the charges are merely "the repackaging of civil charges laid nearly 20 years ago, which have never justified any substantial penalties."
Source: NYT