Meng opens new front in court

Huawei CFO requests documents from HSBC to fight extradition,

Huawei Technologies Ltd.’s chief financial officer is seeking bank records from HSBC Holdings Plc in a bid to prove Meng Wanzhou didn’t trick lenders into processing transactions that violated U.S. sanctions targeting Iran.

Meng, who’s fighting extradition to the U.S. from Canada, asked London’s High Court to grant an order to obtain the records, which she says will show what the bank knew about Huawei’s ties to Iran-linked company Skycom that sparked the extradition request.

At the heart of the case lies a PowerPoint presentation Meng gave to HSBC in Hong Kong in 2013. Meng says the presentation made clear that Skycom was a business partner of Huawei and worked with the firm in sales and services in Iran, her lawyer James Lewis said in a court filing made public Friday.

U.S. prosecutors and HSBC contest this. They say the presentation was misleading because Meng failed to state that Huawei controlled Skycom’s operations in Iran.

The U.S. alleges because of this, HSBC continued to provide services to Huawei, including clearing U.S. dollar transactions related to Skycom’s commerce in Iran, Lewis said.

Meng ’s alleged deceit is said to have placed HSBC’s economic interests at risk, by exposing it to the potential violation of U.S. sanctions, he said. Meng denies any wrongdoing.

A spokesperson for HSBC said the disclosure application is without merit. The bank is not a party to the criminal case in the U.S. or the Canadian extradition proceedings, he said.

A spokesperson for Huawei declined to comment. Meng’s extradition proceedings are due to start in March.