Huawei files lawsuit over seized equipment

Case is latest salvo in battle between US govt and Huawei

WASHINGTON: Huawei Technologies Co Inc filed a lawsuit against the US Commerce Department, challenging whether telecommunications equipment it sent from China to the United States, and then back to China, is covered by the Export Administration Regulations, according to a court filing.

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in a battle between the US government and Huawei. Washington says the Chinese company’s telecommunications gear could be used by Beijing to spy. Huawei denies that is the case. In the lawsuit, Huawei said that it shipped telecommunications equipment from China, including a computer server and Ethernet switch, to a testing laboratory in California. After the testing was done, the equipment was shipped back to China. No application for a licence was made because none was needed, the lawsuit claims.

But the equipment was seized in Alaska by the US government, and no decision has been made about whether a licence is required to ship it, the filing said.

“The equipment, to the best of HT USA’s knowledge, remains in a bureaucratic limbo in an Alaskan warehouse,” Huawei said in its lawsuit.

The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Huawei contends that the equipment did not require a licence because it did not fall into a controlled category and because it was made outside the United States and was being returned to the same country from which it came.

Huawei asked for the equipment to be either released for shipment or for the Commerce Department to decide that it was shipped illegally.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 23^rd, 2019.

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