The DoJ has escalated legal action against Huawei, accusing the company of extortion and conspiring to steal trade secrets from six technology companies.
Huawei and several of its subsidiaries in the United States and China used deception to acquire intellectual property rights from U.S. companies and then use them for commercial products, the U.S. Department of Justice said in court documents. Allegedly, the company obtained the source code and user manual of Internet router, antenna technology and robot testing technology.
According to foreign media reports, these allegations are related to another one filed by the U.S. Department of justice in January 2019, claiming that Huawei is suspected of bank fraud, violation of sanctions and theft of intellectual property rights of T-Mobile in the United States. The U.S. government said the investigation is still ongoing.
Meng Wanzhou, Huawei's chief financial officer, and four related companies were named defendants in the latest case.
Authorities argue that Huawei is suspected of gaining a competitive advantage by stealing technology, enabling it to "significantly reduce research and development costs and related delays" to grow its business faster.
According to the U.S. Department of justice, Huawei has violated confidentiality agreements with U.S. companies to obtain such information; hired employees from other companies and asked them to share trade secrets of former employers; and used professors and other agents of research institutions to obtain intellectual property rights. It added that these activities can be traced back to 1999.
HUAWEI responded
In response to the latest allegations, Huawei told c114 that the new complaint filed by the U.S. Department of justice is not for law enforcement purposes, but for competitive reasons to try to cause irreversible damage to Huawei's reputation and operation.
In a statement, the company said the new charges, which lack factual basis, are based on civil disputes over the past two decades, which have either been settled or litigated, and some have been rejected by federal judges and juries. The US government's allegations will not be supported, "and we will prove that they are baseless and unfair," it added.
Extension of temporary trade license
Despite the "battle of words", the US Department of Commerce suddenly announced that it would once again extend the validity of the temporary trade license for 45 days, allowing us companies to continue business with Huawei.
Since Huawei was blacklisted in May 2019, the temporary license issued by the US Department of Commerce to US companies has been extended many times.
The existing license expires on February 16.
Huawei said in a statement that whether the license is extended or not will have limited material impact on its operation and will not change the unfair treatment it has been suffering.
It pointed out to c114 that the US Department of Commerce will add Huawei to the entity list, which will cause more damage to the US than Huawei. It will not only cause huge economic losses to American companies cooperating with Huawei, but also destroy the cooperation and mutual trust of global supply chain. It also called on the US government to stop unfair treatment of Huawei and remove Huawei from the entity list.
