Huawei Lawyers on HSBC Exec: «Far More Than a Gopher»
Lawyers of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou argued that the tech giant’s affiliation with Skycom was well known within HSBC and that the relationship was misrepresented by U.S. prosecutors.
Frank Addario, one of Meng’s lawyers, said the U.S. Department of Justice presented misleading evidence when describing a business meeting in Hong Kong with an HSBC executive in 2013.
According to Addario, Huawei’s affiliation with Skycom as the account controller for its parent company, Canicula Holdings, was widely known within HSBC.
U.S. prosecutors claim that Meng misrepresented the Skycom relationship, allegedly making statements that suggested that the firm was sold to an arms-length third party when it was in fact sold to a parent company Huawei controlled.
«Far More Than a Gopher»
HSBC’s relationship manager for the Huawei account, whose name remains undisclosed due to a court ban, «couldn’t be doing his job and not know about the relationship», Addario said in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.
«He’s far more than a gopher,» he added. «He’s the actual conduit of information between the two institutions.»
This follows a recent setback for Meng after U.K. courts blocked Huawei’s attempt to obtain internal documents from HSBC that might support her case.
