US Charges Huawei With Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets, Racketeering

silversurfer · Feb 13, 2020

The U.S. Department of Justice charged Huawei and two U.S. subsidiaries with conspiracy to steal trade secrets and to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).

The defendants included in today's16-count superseding indictment are Huawei — the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment — and four official and unofficial subsidiaries: Huawei Device Co. Ltd. (Huawei Device), Huawei Device USA Inc. (Huawei USA), Futurewei Technologies Inc. (Futurewei) and Skycom Tech Co. Ltd. (Skycom).

Huawei’s Chief Financial Officer Wanzhou Meng is also introduced as a defendant. She was previously charged together with Huawei and two Huawei affiliates — Huawei USA and Skycom - with financial fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., obstruction of justice, and sanctions violations in a 13-count indictment unsealed in January 2019.

The new charges included in this new indictment relate to the company's alleged decades-long efforts to steal intellectual property from six US tech companies.

During this time, Huawei and its US and Chinese subsidiaries purportedly misappropriated copyrighted information and trade secrets including but not limited to internet routers' manuals and software source code, as well as antenna and robot testing technology.

"The means and methods of the alleged misappropriation included entering into confidentiality agreements with the owners of the intellectual property and then violating the terms of the agreements by misappropriating the intellectual property for the defendants’ own commercial use, recruiting employees of other companies and directing them to misappropriate their former employers’ intellectual property, and using proxies such as professors working at research institutions to obtain and provide the technology to the defendants," the press release says.

Prorootect · Feb 14, 2020

US Officials Suggest Backing Huawei Competitors, Providing Alternatives

At least two U.S. administration officials have publicly talked about the importance of finding an alternative to China’s Huawei company and of potentially developing partnerships with the telecoms industry as one of the actions.

Experts told The Epoch Times it would largely be a good move by the United States to boost competitors to Huawei. China currently dominates the global 5G infrastructure market, capturing 40 percent through companies Huawei and ZTE.

A partnership between the United States and the telecoms industry would be “very different from buying shares with taxpayers’ money” Robert Blair, White House special representative for international telecommunications policy, said at the Munich Security Conference in Germany.

Blair, at the Feb. 14 conference, also said that the United Kingdom needed to take a “hard look” at its decision to use equipment made by Huawei. Washington has repeatedly stated that Huawei—founded in 1987 by a former People’s Liberation Army engineer—is an extension of the Chinese state and that it helps Chinese intelligence steal secrets. Huawei denies the allegations.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr made a similar proposal last week. The United States and its allies have a five-year window—the time within which global 5G dominance will be determined—to launch a viable competitor. Barr said that the United States and its allies should “actively consider” the possibility of backing Huawei’s two main overseas competitors: Nokia and Ericsson.