PerspectiveU.S. Charges Huawei with Conspiracy to Steal Trade Secrets, Racketeering

Published 14 February 2020

Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei and a number of its subsidiaries were charged with conspiracy to steal trade secrets and racketeering in a federal indictment made public Thursday. The charges also accuse the company of flouting U.S. sanctions by operating subsidiaries in North Korea and Iran. The indictment represents the latest U.S. effort to clamp down on a Chinese telecom company that American officials say has plundered the intellectual property of its rivals in a bid for market dominance.

Chinese telecommunication giant Huawei and a number of its subsidiaries were charged with conspiracy to steal trade secrets and racketeering in a federal indictment made public Thursday.

Sean Lyngaas writes in Cyberscoop that

The charges, filed by prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, build on a prior indictment, announced a year ago, alleging that the Shenzhen-based company had engaged in a pattern of criminal behavior that included the theft of trade secrets from U.S. firms including T-Mobile. The superseding indictment unsealed Thursday comes amid a years-long argument from U.S. officials that Huawei, as a Chinese company, presents a national security threat.

Now, Huawei, the world’s largest manufacturer of telecommunication equipment, also is accused of stealing source code and manuals from other vendors’ internet routers, robot-testing technology, and antenna technology, then using its subsidiaries to reinvest money made from this alleged racketeering activity.

The charges also accuse the company of flouting U.S. sanctions by operating subsidiaries in North Korea and Iran. The government in Tehran allegedly used one Huawei subsidiary to conduct domestic surveillance in 2009.

The indictment represents the latest U.S. effort to clamp down on a Chinese telecom company that American officials say has plundered the intellectual property of its rivals in a bid for market dominance. So concerned is the Trump administration by Huawei’s market power that Attorney General William Barr last week floated the idea of the U.S. investing in a conglomerate of  Western telecom companies to compete with Huawei for 5G networking contracts.