Huawei, HSBC agree on document deal

CHINESE telecommunications equipment firm Huawei said yesterday that it has reached an agreement with HSBC in Hong Kong to obtain documents that its chief financial office Meng Wanzhou hopes will help prevent her extradition to the United States.

Meng, who was detained in Canada in 2018 at the behest of US authorities, has been fighting a legal battle over the last two years as the US seeks to extradite her over allegations of bank fraud and violations of sanctions against Iran.

The US accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of US sanctions. It says Meng committed fraud by misleading HSBC about the company’s business dealings in Iran.

An earlier request by Meng’s legal team for documents from HSBC was rejected by a court in Britain.

In a court hearing yesterday, Hong Kong High Court judge Linda Chan approved the document-sharing agreement between Huawei and HSBC.

“An agreement has been reached with HSBC in relation to the Hong Kong legal proceedings for document production and an order has been approved by the court,”

Huawei said yesterday.

It is not clear which documents Huawei has obtained or what the agreement covers. Meng’s team has sought internal compliance papers pertaining to Huawei and Skycom.

The two sides had a scheduled court hearing yesterday but it lasted little more than a minute with Huawei’s lawyers informing the judge that a deal had been reached.