A statement Meng Wanzhou signed to make her own legal jeopardy go away can now be used against the company she helps run. A US judge in Brooklyn ruled on Tuesday that admissions made by Huawei’s chief financial officer, as part of the 2021 deal that let her walk free, are admissible in the criminal case against Huawei itself, due to go to trial in September.
The document at the centre of the ruling is a four-page statement of facts. In it, Meng acknowledged lying to a financial institution about Huawei’s compliance with US sanctions and export-control law, an admission tied to the bank-fraud allegations she faced over the company’s dealings with Iran.
She made it to secure a deferred-prosecution arrangement that resolved her personal case and ended her long detention in Canada. The admission was the price of her freedom. US District Judge Ann Donnelly held that Huawei cannot now wall that statement off from its own trial.
“Huawei Tech should not be able to object that admitting the statement of its senior executive about her conduct in connection with her job, which Huawei Tech adopted, violates Huawei Tech’s rights,” she wrote.
The logic is that Meng was speaking about her work for Huawei, and that the company cannot disown her words while continuing to employ her at its highest level.
