Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, center, leaves the Supreme Court with her security detail in Vancouver, Canada, March 22, 2021.
U.S. prosecutors say Huawei Technologies Co.’s criminal defense attorney violated a court order by passing prohibited documents in the ongoing Huawei anti-sanctions case to its former chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou for use in opposing her extradition from Canada to the United States.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Solomon said in a letter submitted to the court Wednesday (April 14) that “Huawei is circumventing the proper restrictions established in U.S. criminal cases” and using the evidentiary materials “to assist Meng in her In a letter submitted to the court, Huawei said: “Huawei is circumventing the appropriate restrictions established in the U.S. criminal case” and is using the evidentiary materials “to assist Meng Wanzhou in her attempted multiple merits trials in Canada.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn, N.Y., has previously ruled that thousands of pages of classified documents handed over by the U.S. government to Huawei’s defense attorneys cannot be shared with any Chinese or Meng, and federal prosecutors said Wednesday that documents recently submitted by Meng in her extradition case show she has been given access to the prohibited documents.
David Bitkower, Huawei’s lawyer, did not immediately return calls and emails from the media. Huawei’s U.S. defense attorneys have long complained that prosecutors have disclosed insufficient evidence.
Prosecutors charged Huawei and its chief financial officer with fraud in 2019, alleging they lied to HSBC Holdings Plc about Huawei’s concealment of its relationship with Skycom, another company doing business in Iran, in violation of a U.S. trade sanctions program against Iran.
Huawei pleaded not guilty to the charges. Meng, the daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver in December 2018, and her hearing challenging the U.S. extradition request is currently underway and is expected to last until May. Under U.S. law, she is not entitled to see any evidence before her court appearance in Brooklyn.
Prosecutor Solomon said some of the restricted access documents appear in some of Meng’s recent submissions, such as her “unfounded and speculative allegations” that U.S. authorities misled her Canadian counterpart.
The prosecutor said Huawei’s actions “violate the letter and spirit of the protective order entered in this case and reflect that Huawei’s defense attorneys are acting as Meng’s extradition counsel, impermissibly using the (U.S.) government’s discovery in this case to help Meng and oppose her extradition from Canada.
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