A racketeering conspiracy trial against Huawei Technologies began in New York on Wednesday with federal prosecutors accusing the Chinese tech company of engineering a decades-long racketeering scheme to steal American technology and unfairly gain an industry advantage. According to court documents filed with the Eastern District of New York, the alleged criminal activity dates back to 1999. US District Judge Ann M. Donnelly instructed potential jurors to strive to be as 'fair and impartial' as possible, emphasizing that 'China and the Communist Party … are not on trial' and that the ongoing US-Iran conflict should not influence jurors' judgment. The Shenzhen-based company has pleaded not guilty to all 14 counts, including bank fraud, wire fraud, trade secret theft, and racketeering.
Defense attorney Brian Heberlig dismissed the accusations, telling jurors that prosecutors were basing their case on a smattering of anecdotes and bad behavior by a few of Huawei's roughly 200,000 employees in 170 countries to cast the company and three of its subsidiaries as a corrupt criminal enterprise. As reported by Business Standard, Heberlig noted there was no blueprint for crime and emphasized that jurors should keep in mind that there were real people whose careers and integrity were on the line in this case. The defense attorney also criticized prosecutors' plans to display proof of a Huawei employee taking photos of a rival company's product at a trade show event, arguing that the government failed to mention Huawei promptly fired the worker for the 'foolish act'. During his opening statement, Heberlig told jurors they would see through what he described as the prosecution's unreliable witnesses and see that 'the government's claims don't add up'.
The first witness prosecutors called was Parham Baheshti, who grew up in Iran but moved to the US to study and became a US citizen in 2000. According to Business Standard, Baheshti testified that he fed secrets to the US government about his dealings with Huawei after learning about the tech giant while working in 2009 for a small but fast-growing company bringing internet access to far-flung corners of Iran. Baheshti said he had been excited to try to bring internet access to small Iranian cities, but that he came to believe that Huawei wasn't going to help. 'They didn't seem to care about that,' he said. 'They had their own agenda.' He found it 'infuriating' during one meeting with Huawei workers when he realized the Chinese company was making a pitch 'for analyzing the (Iranian) people and their behavior online.' Baheshti left Iran in 2011 when he was told he was under investigation.
Huawei has been banned from selling equipment to US carriers over fears it poses a security risk and has also been blacklisted by other Western allies, including Canada and Britain. As reported by Business Standard, the company makes phones and other consumer electronics but has been cut off from other lines of business. More recently, it has expanded into chipmaking as the boom in artificial intelligence fuels demand for microprocessors. During President Donald Trump's first term, his administration raised national security concerns about Huawei and began lobbying Western allies against including the company's products in their next-generation high-speed wireless networks. The company remains the world's biggest supplier of gear for wireless telecom networks, despite these restrictions.
The US announced the criminal charges in early 2019 and has since expanded the allegations. According to Business Standard, Chinese officials said the US has engaged in 'economic bullying' and improperly used national security as a pretext for 'oppressing Chinese companies'. The trial represents a significant legal challenge for Huawei, which has been operating under various restrictions and investigations for several years. The case will test whether the company's rapid global expansion and technological achievements can overcome allegations of criminal conduct, with the nearly decade of litigation culminating in this current racketeering trial.
