Huawei exec’s lawyers fight for bail ahead of ruling
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — At the second day of a bail hearing at British Columbia’s Supreme Court, Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers pulled out all the stops to free their client. They brought in executives of two security companies to testify about how they would monitor the Huawei executive if she were to be released. The lawyers said Meng, 46, would pay the fees for both security companies, submit to physical and electronic monitoring, and give two Vancouver homes and a cash payment to secure bail. The cash and homes would total roughly $15 million in value.
“Given her unique profile as the face of a Chinese corporate national champion, if she were to flee or breach your order in any way in these very unique circumstances, my lord, it does not
overstate to say she would embarrass China itself,” one of her lawyers, David Martin, told the judge.
After a second daylong session, Justice William Ehrcke said the bail hearing would continue Tuesday.
U.S. authorities have argued before Ehrcke in court documents that Meng should not be released before extradition. They said that her family’s wealth and connections would make it easy for her to flee Canada, and that she had been issued seven passports from China and Hong Kong in the past 11 years. China and the United States do not have an extradition treaty, they added.
Meng’s detention has unfolded just as China and the United States are trying to end a brutal trade war. Given Meng’s stature as a top Chinese executive and Huawei’s position as a leading Chinese technology company, her arrest complicates trade talks and the already rocky relationship between the two countries.
Meng was arrested Dec. 1 while between flights in Vancouver, where she had arrived from Hong Kong and was heading to Mexico. Canadian authorities said they detained her at the request of the United States.
At the heart of the case that U.S. authorities appear to be building against Meng is that she misled financial institutions into making transactions that violated U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Huawei used a Hong Kong company, Skycom Tech, to make transactions in Iran and do business with telecom companies there, in violation of U.S. sanctions, Canadian prosecutors said Friday. Banks in the United States cleared financial transactions for Huawei, inadvertently doing business with Skycom. One unnamed bank and its U.S. subsidiary cleared more than $100 million in transactions related to Skycom through the United States between approximately 2010 and 2014, according to an affidavit.
Meng personally made a presentation to a bank — later disclosed to be HSBC — where she said Huawei and Skycom operated in Iran in compliance with U.S. sanctions, Canadian prosecutors said. Those statements constituted fraud, they said.
On Monday, the presentation Meng made to HSBC officials was released in a court filing. The presentation was dated July 2013 — the same month the British bank became subject to monitoring as part of a settlement with U.S. officials over moneylaundering charges involving Iran and other organizations.
Titled “Trust, Compliance & Cooperation,” the presentation described sanctions put in place by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States, and focused on Huawei’s telecom business.
It described Skycom as a “business partner” working with Huawei on “sales and services in Iran.” Huawei had held shares of Skycom and put Meng on the board to provide the supervision necessary to “ensure trade compliance” but gave those up after it instead decided to do business in Iran through a local subsidiary, the presentation said.
According to a letter filed in court from the U.S. Justice Department, each of the several criminal charges Meng faces in the United States carries a maximum sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment.