Huawei seeks to get US ban on its gear overturned

Huawei Technologies, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment supplier, said on Wednesday it has filed a motion for summary judgment to get a US ban on Huawei equipment for federal agencies and contractors overturned.

The action comes nearly three months after Huawei filed a lawsuit against the US government, arguing that the federal ban, outlined in Section 889 of the 2019 US National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), is unconstitutional as it singles out a person or a group for punishment without trial.

Photo credit: Huawei

“They are using every tool they have, including legislative, administrative, and diplomatic channels. They want to put us out of business. This is not normal – almost never seen in history,” Huawei’s chief legal officer Song Liuping said in a press conference in Shenzhen on Wednesday. “The fact is, the US government has provided no evidence to show that Huawei is a security threat. There is no gun, no smoke. Only speculation.”

“The judicial system is the last line of defense for justice. Huawei has confidence in the independence and integrity of the US judicial system. We hope that mistakes in the NDAA can be corrected by the court,” Song added.

Huawei has been under rising pressure from US President Donald Trump’s administration, which has been trying to discourage US allies from using telecom equipment from the Shenzhen-based company for next-generation 5G mobile network rollouts, citing national security risk. Super fast 5G networks are seen as one of the gateways to a future digital economy, powering industrial IoT applications.

Huawei said that banning the company from the US market using cybersecurity as an excuse “will do nothing” to strengthen the security of government networks. Instead, it will only distract attention from the “real challenges.” The company is filing the motion for summary judgment in order to accelerate the process of halting “illegal action against the company.”

Glen Nager, Huawei’s lead counsel for the US case, said in a press release that Section 889 of the 2019 NDAA “violates the Bill of Attainder, Due Process, and Vesting Clauses of the United States Constitution.” He said the case was purely “a matter of law” as there are no facts at issue, thereby justifying the motion for summary judgment to speed up the process.

Earlier this month, the US government took its campaign against Huawei a step further and placed it on a trade blacklist, known as the entity list, again over concerns that the company’s network gear posed a security risk. The US government said Huawei’s gear could be compromised by Chinese intelligence agencies.

Huawei has repeatedly and vehemently denied these accusations.

The trade ban, which restricts the company’s access to critical hardware, software, and services from American hi-tech companies, is suffocating Huawei as it relies on a variety of US technologies to keep its businesses running. Trump has also signed an executive order that restricts US companies from buying telecom products from “foreign adversaries” that pose national security threat.

Commenting on Huawei’s addition to the US entity list, Song said: “This sets a dangerous precedent. Today, it’s telecoms and Huawei. Tomorrow it could be your industry, your company, your consumers.” He added that the US move could directly impact more than 1,200 suppliers who work with Huawei.

It has seen major hi-tech suppliers – including Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and chip technology provider ARM Holdings – move to sever business ties with Huawei. This has hurt the Chinese firm’s smartphone business overseas, where a number of panic-stricken users have recently put up their new Huawei devices online for sale.

Huawei shipped more than 200 million smartphones in 2018, over half of which were sold in markets outside China.