Huawei Faces U.S. Criminal Probe Over Trade Secrets Theft: report
The aggressive stance by the U.S. against Huawei Technologies Co. continues, with federal authorities in Seattle to reportedly investigate the Chinese technology giant for allegedly stealing trade secrets from U.S. companies like T-Mobile US Inc.
The probe is tied to civil suits filed against Huawei, including a case in which a federal jury in Seattle in 2017 found Huawei liable for the theft of T-Mobile’s robotic technology, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter.
In a 2014 suit, T-Mobile alleged a Huawei engineer slipped a diagnostic robot into his laptop bag during the visit and left with it.
The jury sided with T-Mobile in 2017, saying the theft resulted in Huawei making “hundreds of millions of dollars” from T-Mobile’s technology.
T-Mobile also claimed that the Chinese technology giant also stole source code and other trade secrets from other companies.
The current investigation, which was also reported on Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal, is at an advanced stage and an indictment could come soon, Bloomberg says.
Huawei has been under increasing pressure in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere amid growing concerns that Beijing could use the company’s equipment for spying, something Huawei executives have denied. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has been pushing European allies to block Huawei from telecom networks amid a wider dispute over trade with China. Last week, a company employee was arrested in Poland.