UK Edition
Huawei pleads not guilty to conspiracy to steal US trade secrets
Huawei has pleaded not guilty to US charges that it engaged in a "company-wide conspiracy" to steal trade secrets from an American rival.
In a hearing on Thursday in Seattle, USA, lawyers for the Chinese telecom giant denied charges of fraud, attempted theft and obstruction of justice, according to the US Justice Department.
Federal prosecutors have accused Huawei of stealing details of a smartphone-testing robot called Tappy from the US arm of T-Mobile, as well as violating US sanctions against Iran.
A previous lawsuit was resolved in T-Mobile's favour after Huawei admitted that two of its employees had "acted inappropriately in their zeal". But the US now claims it has emails proving that the company offered bonuses to employees for stealing information from competitors.
It is the latest chapter in a diplomatic and legal offensive by the Trump administration against Chinese companies and Huawei in particular, which the White House claims is a security threat.
Last week Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, claimed that his government would not be able to share information with allied countries that use Huawei systems in their infrastructure because it could provide a "backdoor" for the Chinese government.
Huawei claims that these concerns are overblown and that it will never plant backdoors in its technology. The company has denied any wrongdoing in the Tappy case and said it expects to be found innocent.
US prosecutors allege that between June 2012 and September 2014 Huawei repeatedly attempted to steal information about Tappy, a robot arm with a rubber tip that can operate a smartphone in imitation of human fingers.
Huawei employees who were permitted by T-Mobile to view the robot allegedly snuck into its laboratory to take photos and even removed Tappy's arm from the building in order to measure and photograph it.
A civil court in Seattle in 2017 awarded $4.8m (£3.6m) in damages against Huawei, finding that it had indeed misappropriated T-Mobile's trade secrets and breached a supply contract between the two firms.
But the jury also found that the misappropriation had not been "willful and malicious" on Huawei's part, and limited its award of damages to the breach of contract.
The US government now says Huawei falsified an internal investigation given to T-Mobile which claimed the employees who stole Tappy had acted alone.
Separately, Huawei's chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, remains on bail in Canada after being arrested on US charges alleging that Huawei conspired to violate US sanctions on Iran through an unacknowledged subsidiary.
Canadian authorities have until the end of Friday to decide whether to begin the process of extraditing Ms Meng to the USA, which would deepen the diplomatic imbroglio between the three nations.
China has detained two Canadians on national security grounds and sentenced a third to death for drug trafficking in what critics describe as retaliation against Canada for cooperating with the US government.
Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has accused Beijing of applying the death sentence "arbitrarily", prompting a rebuke from Chinese state media, which described his remarks as "unreasonable speculation" and "rude contempt".
The trial in the Tappy case has been set for March 2020. Ms Meng will next appear in court in early March.