Prosecutor calls Huawei “a criminal enterprise” as US trial begins
Huawei’s success is built on theft, fraud, and sanctions violations, the US prosecutor claims.
Huawei retail shop in Shenzhen, China. Photo by Cheng Xin/Getty Images
- US prosecutors accuse Huawei of running a criminal enterprise for more than 20 years.
- Huawei is on trial in New York over alleged trade secret theft from five companies.
- Prosecutors say Huawei stole technology from Cisco and T-Mobile to gain an unfair advantage.
- Huawei denies wrongdoing and says its success came from competition, innovation, and hard work.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
The US accuses Huawei of leading “a criminal enterprise” for more than 2 decades. The Chinese tech company is being blamed for intellectual property theft, fraud, violating sanctions against Iran, and profiting from illegal activities.
Huawei is on trial in New York for the alleged theft of trade secrets from 5 companies, including Motorola, T-Mobile, and Cisco.
For 20 years, that’s how Huawei, a massive Chinese telecommunications company, victimized American companies and abused the American financial system, all in an effort to dominate the telecommunications industry around the world,US prosecutor Taylor Stout said during the government’s opening statement on Wednesday.
He alleges that Huawei conspired to steal trade secrets from American businesses, including the source code of an operating system for internet routers from Cisco and a robotic arm used to test phones from T-Mobile.
The intellectual property theft served only one goal: to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other businesses.
In addition, the prosecutor accuses the company of laundering money through the financial system of Iran and helping the Iranian regime to spy on its own citizens.
Furthermore, Huawei deliberately violated US sanctions against Iran by supplying telecommunications equipment through an indirect channel.
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Huawei’s defense lawyers retorted that their client earned its success through hard work. “It's about competition, not conspiracy. Innovation, not theft. Ordinary business dealings, not criminal conduct. Huawei earned its success. There was no blueprint for crime,” they said.
“The Chinese government firmly opposes the US side’s suppression and containment of Chinese enterprises. China firmly supports Chinese enterprises in safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests,” a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said during a press conference on Thursday, according to Reuters.
For several years, Huawei hasn’t been allowed to provide products or services in the US because the government decided to put the company on its Entity List, a list of companies, organizations, and individuals subject to US export controls.
According to President Trump, Huawei has close ties to the Chinese government and spies on US companies on behalf of Beijing. Therefore, the Chinese tech company poses a threat to national security.
