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U.S. investigating Huawei for ‘stealing trade secrets’ from American business partners
The U.S. is investigating Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. businesses and could soon issue an indictment, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The WSJ said the investigation stems in part from a lawsuit that telecoms company T-Mobile brought against Huawei in 2014. T-Mobile accused Huawei of stealing the technology behind a robot T-Mobile had developed to test mobile phones.
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A Huawei spokesman declined to comment on the federal probe but said Huawei and T-Mobile “settled their disputes in 2017 following a U.S. jury verdict finding neither damage, unjust enrichment nor willful and malicious conduct by Huawei in T-Mobile’s trade secret claim.” The company contested the T-Mobile case but conceded that two employees acted improperly.
There are three basic complaints the U.S. has against Huawei:
- Breaching sanctions against Iran
- Aiding and abetting espionage
- Stealing technology
Last week a Huawei employee was arrested in Poland, accused of spying. Last month, the firm’s chief financial officer was arrested in Canada, at the request of the US related to those claims.
Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of Huawei, during a meeting with the media in Shenzhen, China, on Tuesday. He said the tech giant never would spy on behalf of China’s government.
Mr. Ren said Huawei hasn’t—and would never—spy on behalf of the Chinese government.