Her lawyer says the US proceedings against Huawei’s CFO are “defective”

Vancouver, British Columbia-Friday’s hand-over hearing, a senior lawyer at Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies said she was full of “fatal flaws” and “changing theories.” Attacked.

Canada arrested Huawei’s founder’s daughter Meng Wanzhou, the company’s chief financial officer, at a Vancouver airport in late 2018. Her arrest infuriated Beijing. Beijing sees her case as a political move planned to prevent the rise of China.

The United States has accused Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of US sanctions. Meng, 49, said he committed fraud by misleading HSBC Bank into misleading its business transactions in Iran.

The long delivery process has entered a commitment phase, including a debate over the US government’s request to deliver Meng.

Defendant lawyer Eric Gottardi said fraud cases are usually easy and lie that someone will lose money.

“It’s different in this case,” he said. “The alleged deception is ambiguous at best. The risk of financial loss to the alleged victim HSBC is completely fantastic.”

The changing theory advocated by the United States “emphasizes the weakness of their claims,” ​​he said.

“In this case, there is no actual loss. In any of the requesting states, the theory of risk of loss does not pass the convocation. They all do not exist or are completely speculative.”

The threshold for allowing delivery may not be high, but “it’s a meaningful threshold,” Gottaridi said.

“The requesting state requires a plausible case. Here we say the case is far less than enough.”

Gottardi is a Canadian government lawyer who was dishonest about Meng’s failure to disclose Huawei’s relationship with Skycom during a meeting with HSBC officials, putting banks at risk of violating US sanctions against Iran. Disputed the allegations made by.

“There is no evidence that Meng Wanzhou’s deputy caused HSBC to violate US sanctions law,” he said. “In any case, HSBC was not exposed to the actual risk of criminal or civil liability.”

It was HSBC’s choice to receive the money deposited by Skycom and settle it through the United States.

“The fact that HSBC chose to liquidate US dollar transactions through its US subsidiary … You can’t blame Meng Wanzhou,” Gottardi said.

Frank Adario, another member of the defense team, said during the meeting that Men never denied that Huawei and Skycom were “working closely in Iran.”

She also denied the allegations made in the news article that Huawei was involved in the sale of embargoed equipment.

“There is non-zero evidence that either Skycom or Huawei violated US sanctions laws on Iran,” he said.

Meng, who attended the court with an electronic surveillance device on his ankle, followed the proceedings through an interpreter.

Heather Holmes, Associate Chief Justice, is not expected to decide to hand over Meng until later this year. Whatever her decision, it will probably be appealed.

Earlier this week, a Chinese court sentenced Canadian entrepreneur Michael Spavor to 11 years in prison for espionage.

Spavor and fellow Canadian Michael Kovrig were arrested in December 2018 in clear retaliation for Meng’s arrest.

The Chinese government has released few details since 2017, other than accusing Spavor of passing sensitive information to Kovrig. Both are isolated and have little contact with Canadian diplomats.

In another case, the Liaoning High People’s Court in the northeast dismissed an appeal by Robert Schellenberg of Canada, whose 15-year sentence on drug smuggling charges was extended in January 2019 following Meng’s arrest.