By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Huawei Technologies has asked a U.S. judge to dismiss much of a federal indictment accusing the Chinese telecommunications company of trying to steal technology secrets from U.S. rivals and misleading banks about its activities in Iran.
In a Friday evening filing in federal court in Brooklyn, Huawei said there was no evidence of a conspiracy, calling the indictment part of the Justice Department’s “baseless” China Initiative to prosecute people and companies linked to China.
Huawei said several charges related to activities outside the United States, while the bank fraud charges relied on a “right to control” theory of fraud that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected in an unrelated case last year.
“The government has approached Huawei as a target for prosecution in search of a crime,” said Huawei, which has pleaded not guilty. A trial is scheduled for January 5, 2026.
Huawei is based in Shenzhen, operates in more than 170 countries and has approximately 207,000 employees.
A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in Brooklyn declined to comment Monday. Huawei’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The case began in 2018 and led to the arrest in Canada of Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou, whose father founded the company. The charges against her were dismissed in 2022.
The China Initiative began in 2018 during the first administration of newly elected President Donald Trump and was intended to address Beijing’s alleged theft of intellectual property.
Four years later, the Biden administration ended the program after critics said it amounted to racial profiling and created a climate of fear that chilled scientific research.
The US government has restricted Huawei’s access to US technology since 2019 over national security concerns. Huawei denies it is a threat.
The case is US v. Huawei Technologies Co et al, US District Court, Eastern District of New York, No. 18-cr-00457.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
