US Department of Justice levies 23 charges against Huawei and its CFO in New York and Seattle

Huawei and China's government protest over US criminal charges

Huawei has protested over the levying of 23 charges against the communications giant and its chief financial officer by the US Department of Justice.

The company has been accused of fraud, including the theft of intellectual property belonging to its partners, most notably T-Mobile, where evidence of photos of Huawei employees posing with a prototype T-Mobile robot were cited. In addition, charges related to trade with Iran in breach of sanctions have also been levied.

Huawei has been accused of funnelling deals with Iran through front companies in a bid to disguise them and, thereby, to evade US sanctions.

In particular, Huawei is accused of misleading US authorities and a major bank over its relationship with two companies, Huawei Device USA and Skycom Tech, which were conducting business in Iran, contrary to the US-led sanctions.

"These charges lay bare Huawei's alleged blatant disregard for the laws of our country and standard global business practices," said FBI director Christopher Wray.

Huawei's chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada under an international arrest warrant issued by the US just last month. Meng is the daughter of Huawei's founder, Ren Zhengfei. She is accused of complicity by the US in helping to cover-up the Iran deals.

That arrest caused a diplomatic incident between Canada and China, but despite threats Canada has pushed ahead with extradition proceedings.

Now, Huawei has hit back, with the support of China's government, which has described the charges as "unfair and immoral", while Huawei claimed that the charges were part of a conspiracy to suppress Chinese companies from operating in the US.

The Chinese authorities also accused the US government of using its power to "blacken" the name of Chinese companies, referring not just to Huawei, but also ZTE. It was almost taken down last year by a US government embargo after it broke an agreement over Iran sanctions busting.

The US has also persuaded a number of allies to bar Huawei, in particular, from supplying key hardware for national communications infrastructure, particularly the 5G networks that mobile operators have started building.

While the UK hasn't instituted a formal ban, both BT (which owns EE) and Vodafone have announced plans to scale-back their use of Huawei hardware.