The racketeering conspiracy trial of Chinese technology giant Huawei Technologies opened in New York on Wednesday, with US federal prosecutors accusing the company of engaging in a series of criminal activities over two decades.
The allegations against Huawei include stealing technology from American companies, misusing the US financial system and assisting Iran in monitoring its citizens. The company, which is the world’s largest supplier of wireless telecommunications equipment, has been barred from selling its network gear to US carriers over national security concerns.
Huawei has also faced restrictions from other Western countries, including Canada and Britain.
Opening the government’s case before a Brooklyn jury, Department of Justice lawyer Taylor Stout alleged that Huawei had committed several crimes over a period spanning two decades.
However, Huawei’s defence lawyer, Brian Heberlig, rejected the accusations, arguing that prosecutors were relying on isolated incidents and the misconduct of a small number of employees to portray the company and three of its subsidiaries as a criminal organisation.
Heberlig said Huawei had about 200,000 employees operating across 170 countries and urged jurors to distinguish between individual wrongdoing and a company-wide conspiracy.
“There was no blueprint for crime,” Heberlig said, noting that jurors should keep in mind that there were “real people whose careers, integrity are on the line in this case.”
The prosecution’s first witness was Parham Baheshti, an Iranian-born US citizen who moved to America for his studies before becoming a US citizen in 2000.
Baheshti later returned to Iran in 2003 to be closer to his wife’s family. He told the court that he began secretly providing information to the US government about his dealings with Huawei after encountering the company while working for a small but rapidly expanding firm that was helping to bring internet access to remote parts of Iran in 2009.
He said he had initially been enthusiastic about expanding internet access to smaller Iranian cities but eventually became convinced that Huawei had different priorities.
“They didn’t seem to care about that,” he said. “They had their own agenda.”
Baheshti also recalled a meeting with Huawei employees where he became angry after realising the company was proposing technology aimed at monitoring internet users in Iran.
He said he found it “infuriating” when Huawei workers made a pitch “for analyzing the (Iranian) people and their behavior online.”
Baheshti eventually left Iran in 2011 after being informed that he was under investigation.
Heberlig, in his opening statement, questioned the credibility of witnesses expected to testify against Huawei and maintained that their evidence would fail to establish the government’s allegations.
He said jurors would discover that “the government’s claims don’t add up,” while suggesting that some witnesses had been motivated by “old grudges.”
The defence lawyer also challenged the prosecution’s plan to present evidence involving a Huawei employee who photographed a rival company’s product at a trade show.
Heberlig argued that prosecutors had failed to highlight that Huawei dismissed the employee after discovering what he described as the worker’s “foolish act.”
According to the defence, the incident did not demonstrate a broader criminal scheme within Huawei.
It wasn’t proof of a “companywide conspiracy,” Heberlig said, attributing Huawei’s rapid expansion to its engineering, investment, innovation and ability to compete.
Huawei manufactures smartphones and other consumer electronics but has faced restrictions affecting several areas of its business. The company has also moved further into chipmaking as growing demand for artificial intelligence drives the need for advanced microprocessors.
The US government’s concerns about Huawei intensified during Donald Trump’s first presidency, when his administration raised national security concerns over the company and urged Western allies not to use its equipment in next-generation high-speed wireless networks.
US prosecutors announced criminal charges against Huawei in early 2019, with the allegations subsequently expanded.
Chinese officials have repeatedly rejected the US position, accusing Washington of using national security concerns as a justification for targeting Chinese businesses.
They said the US had engaged in “economic bullying” and improperly used national security as a pretext for “oppressing Chinese companies.”
