Huawei faces landmark US trial over alleged technology theft and sanctions breaches
The Brooklyn case places Huawei at the centre of a broader US-China contest over telecommunications, semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
Huawei has pleaded not guilty in a landmark criminal trial in Brooklyn, where US prosecutors accuse the Chinese technology company of stealing trade secrets, defrauding banks, laundering money and evading sanctions on Iran.
The trial began on 9 September and is expected to last about three months. Prosecutors allege wrongdoing between 1999 and 2020, including the theft of technology from five US companies and efforts to conceal Huawei’s Iranian operations from the financial system.
The allegations include claims that Huawei took internet-router source code from Cisco and a robotic arm used by T-Mobile to test phones. Prosecutors also allege the company supplied equipment that could assist Iranian authorities in monitoring protesters during demonstrations in 2009.
Huawei rejects the case as a company-wide conspiracy built from ordinary business disputes and the actions of individual employees. Its defence says the prosecution has selected isolated incidents and presented routine activity by a global technology company as criminal conduct.
The proceedings follow Washington’s 2019 decision to place Huawei on a trade blacklist and pressure allies to exclude it from 5G networks. They also overlap with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned 23–25 September visit to Washington, as tensions continue over trade, critical technologies and access to advanced chips.
A US judge ruled in June that admissions made by Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou under a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement can be used as evidence. Meng’s separate case arose from her 2018 arrest in Canada over allegations involving Huawei’s business in Iran; related charges were later dismissed. Al Jazeera reported that the claims in the current trial remain unproven.
