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Vincent Chow

Key witnesses are expected to testify in Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies’ landmark criminal case on Thursday in Brooklyn, New York, as it enters its second day of testimony.
It comes after a US government lawyer told federal jurors on the opening day that Huawei engaged in criminal activities to achieve “growth at any cost”, while a lawyer for the company said that Huawei employees deemed to have broken company policies were punished for their actions.
Brian Heberlig, of US law firm Steptoe, also said on Wednesday in his opening statement that the 2021 admission of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou to violating US sanctions on Iran should not be viewed as a “confession” as Meng did not admit to deliberately deceiving any government officials or banks, or that anyone else at Huawei acted with criminal intent.
The admission was part of a “negotiated statement of fact” reached with the US government, the defence lawyer said.
The remarks were a response to the opening statement by the federal prosecution, which highlighted Meng’s admission made “under oath” as key evidence that Huawei became one of the world’s leading telecoms companies through “theft, lies [and] cover-ups”.
Justice Department lawyer Taylor Stout told jurors that a “culture of crime” had existed at Huawei for over 20 years, stemming from the top leadership including founder Ren Zhengfei and his daughter Meng.

Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer, spent almost three years under house arrest after being arrested in Canada in 2018 on suspicion of violating US sanctions on Iran and bank fraud.
In 2021, she reached a deal with the US government that saw her agree to sign on to a "statement of facts", which included admission of some wrongdoing, and prosecutors withdrawing their extradition request, allowing Meng to return to China.
Stout said that Huawei had been run as a criminal enterprise for decades, stealing technology from US companies such as T-Mobile and Cisco, violating US sanctions by doing business in Iran and lying to international financial institutions including HSBC.
He told jurors that they would soon see evidence in court showing that Huawei employees were following company policy as they engaged in “a pattern of criminal activity lasting 20 years”, including video of a Huawei employee stealing a robot part from T-Mobile and testimony from former Huawei employees.
However, Heberlig accused prosecutors of “cherry-picking” isolated incidents to label Huawei as a long-running criminal enterprise when in fact its success is based on “competition not conspiracy” and “innovation not theft”.
“[The prosecution] will ask you to infer a grand plan based on disconnected incidents, but the evidence won’t show that,” he told the courtroom in the Eastern District of New York, where the case is being heard.
Huawei has been charged with 14 criminal counts including bank fraud, money laundering and racketeering conspiracy, with the alleged criminal activity dating back as early as 1999.
Meng’s 2021 deal with the US government is expected to be a major flashpoint in the trial as prosecutors look to present it as key evidence of Huawei’s top-down criminal culture, while the defence seeks to minimise its importance.
How Meng’s admission may be used in evidence in the trial was a major subject of debate in the pre-trial litigation between the two legal teams, with US District Judge Ann Donnelly ultimately allowing those earlier admissions to be used in the trial.
Heberlig said on Wednesday that Huawei merely “adopted” that statement, including through a press release released after Meng was allowed to return to China in 2021 that said the company would continue to defend itself against the US government’s charges.
Prosecutors said in a pre-trial court filing that they sought to call Meng to testify at the trial with a guarantee that she would not be detained during her stay in the US, though she is not expected to testify at the trial.


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Prosecutors allege a 20-year ‘culture of crime’, while defence says Huawei’s success was built on innovation, not theft


Prosecutors allege a 20-year ‘culture of crime’, while defence says Huawei’s success was built on innovation, not theft.


Huawei racketeering trial in US enters second day of testimony

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Prosecutors allege a 20-year ‘culture of crime’, while defence says Huawei’s success was built on innovation, not theft

Prosecutors allege a 20-year ‘culture of crime’, while defence says Huawei’s success was built on innovation, not theft