Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested Saturday in Canada, is expected to be extradited to the U.S. to face charges.
Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies and daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested by Canadian law enforcement authorities in Vancouver on Saturday and is expected to soon be extradited to the United States to face charges of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran, according to various news reports.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the Chinese embassy in Canada urged her release and said she has not violated any laws.
The U.S. Commerce Department has been closely monitoring Huawei’s exports in recent years to embargoed countries and sanctioned individuals and entities. Huawei’s telecommunications technologies include U.S.-made components that are subject to various export controls.
Both the Commerce and Treasury departments allege that Huawei has flouted U.S. export controls by shipping its technology to Iran, and in April the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into the company’s export activities with the embargoed country.
According to comments made by Meng and her father during an Oct. 29 company meeting that were obtained by the South China Morning Post, the Huawei executives questioned the need for strict compliance with U.S. export controls.
“Of course, beyond the yellow and red lines, there may still be another scenario, and that is where the external rules are clear-cut and there’s no contention, but the company is totally unable to comply with in actual operations. In such cases, after a reasonable decision-making process, one may accept the risk of temporary noncompliance,” Meng reportedly said.
The scope of the charges that Meng will face once she’s in U.S. custody is still unclear.
ZTE, another Chinese telecommunications giant, was penalized by U.S. authorities earlier this year for its role in bypassing U.S. sanctions against Iran.
Huawei CFO accused of violating Iran sanctions
