Huawei Faces Brooklyn Trial on Theft, Sanctions Charges — SkimNews
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- Huawei faces racketeering, money laundering, bank and wire fraud, sanctions violations, obstruction, and trade-secret theft charges in a Brooklyn federal trial that began September 9, with US prosecutors alleging a two-decade criminal conspiracy spanning 1999 to 2020.
- US prosecutors say Huawei stole internet-router source code from Cisco and a T-Mobile phone-testing robotic arm, and concealed its Iran operations to move US dollars through banks despite US sanctions.
- Huawei's defense, led by lawyer Brian Heberlig, told jurors the case is "competition, not conspiracy," arguing prosecutors "cherry-picked isolated events" by individual employees rather than proving company-wide policy.
- China's Foreign Ministry condemned the prosecution weeks before Xi Jinping's September 23-25 Washington visit, saying Beijing "firmly opposes the US side's suppression and containment of Chinese enterprises."
- Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver in 2018 on related charges for misleading HSBC about Iran business; her admissions from a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement were ruled admissible as evidence in the current trial in June.
- The case sits within a broader US-China tech rivalry that has expanded from 5G into semiconductors and AI, with China controlling 60% of global rare earth mineral reserves and processing 90% of supply.
Why it matters: The trial's timing — overlapping with Xi Jinping's September 23-25 Washington visit — places Huawei's fate directly on the US-China diplomatic agenda, potentially complicating trade negotiations between the world's two largest economies that remain deadlocked after this year's tariff truce. Beijing has already publicly framed the prosecution as anti-Chinese suppression, giving Xi leverage to demand concessions on tech export controls.
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