 |
| Huawei takes HSBC to court over the company's founder's daughter |
Huawei filed a lawsuit against the British bank HSBC on Friday, asking them to hand over the documents to China. The Chinese tech company is taking new legal steps to prevent Canada from extraditing its CFO (Meng Wanzhou) to the United States.
Huawei has asked the UK Supreme Court for a document explaining that the US CFO has not misled the bank to evade sanctions against Iran, US officials have claimed.
The legal requirements complicate the geopolitical battle over tax liability issues as they also put pressure on HSBC, which gets most of its revenue from China.
Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested at the request of the United States in December 2018 when she was changing flights in Vancouver.
The US government has accused Huawei of using a bogus company in Hong Kong called Skycom to sell telecom equipment to Iran.
Wanzhou is fighting extradition to the United States, where it has been charged with fraud for deceiving HSBC business transactions in Iran.
Huawei's legal mandate centers around a PowerPoint presentation made available by Wanzhou to senior HSBC executives in August 2013, explaining the company's relationship with Skycom and its compliance work.
Wanzhou legal team accused US of using misleading summaries of meetings carefully selected PowerPoint slides.
The lawyers hope to access the full PowerPoint presentation, which Wanzhou said clearly establishes the relationship between Huawei and Skycom.
The company also hopes that these records provide a better understanding of who in the bank was aware of the meeting and what was discussed.
Huawei's lawyer, James Lewis, said at the hearing: Wanzhou needs these documents in order to hold a fair hearing in Canada.
He stated that the US authorities had refused to provide these documents, but if he was able to obtain them regardless of what the US lawyers said, nothing would prevent his defense attorney from using them.
HSBC's attorney told the judge: The lawsuit should be dismissed because the court has no jurisdiction.
The bank added in a media statement: This UK disclosure requirement is baseless and HSBC does not participate in extradition procedures in major criminal cases in the US or Canada.
Judge Michael Fordham (Michael Fordham) said: He intends to issue a written judgment on Huawei and HSBC cases within 7 days.
Canadian extradition is still taking place in Wanzhou on bail in Vancouver and warranty still available. It is scheduled to last on March 1 and may take several years.