This is the English translation of the transcript of episode 20 of my podcast Reasoned Talk (议正言辞). The episode is in Chinese. You can listen to this episode on Xiaoyuzhou , Apple Podcasts , or Spotify .

On December 1, 2018, Meng Wanzhou, then Huawei’s vice chairwoman and chief financial officer, was changing planes at Vancouver International Airport on her way to Mexico. Canadian police arrested her at the request of the United States. The U.S. government accused Huawei of using Skycom, a company registered in Hong Kong, to resell American technology products to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. As one of Huawei’s most senior executives, Meng became a target of the prosecution.

For nearly three years afterward, Meng’s name remained at the center of international attention. Although released on bail, she could not leave Vancouver and remained under surveillance. Extradition hearings followed one after another, while relations among China, the United States, and Canada became deadlocked over the case. On September 22, 2021, Meng entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice. The agreement was made public two days later, and she returned to China. In 2022, the U.S. government dismissed the charges against her.

To many people, the matter seemed to be over. But on September 9, 2026, another trial began in federal court in the Eastern District of New York. This time, the U.S. government was no longer prosecuting Meng personally. The defendants were Huawei and three of its subsidiaries, and documents Meng signed in 2021 could become highly damaging evidence against the company.

Why, then, did Huawei finally face a U.S. criminal trial four years after Meng returned home? That is the subject of this episode.

Skycom, Iran, and the Bank-Fraud Allegations

U.S. prosecutors had in fact obtained an indictment against Huawei in August 2018. It was not made public until January 2019, more than a month after Meng’s arrest in Canada. The defendants named at the time included Huawei, Huawei Device USA, Hong Kong-based Skycom, and Meng herself. The principal charges included bank fraud, wire fraud, violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran, and obstruction of justice.

To understand these allegations, we first need to look at Skycom. The company was registered in Hong Kong, but its principal business was in Iran. According to the statement Meng confirmed in 2021, all of Skycom’s shares were held by Huawei subsidiary Hua Ying Management in February 2007. In November of that year, the shares were transferred from Hua Ying to another company, Canicula, which Huawei also controlled.

Meng joined Skycom’s board in February 2008 and served until April 2009. The other directors were Huawei employees. Canicula continued to hold Skycom’s shares after Meng left the board, and Huawei continued to control Canicula. From 2010 through 2014, Huawei made Skycom’s major business decisions in Iran. People who worked at Skycom understood that they were working for Huawei and used Huawei email addresses.

The same document states that, from 2010 through 2014, Huawei arranged approximately $100 million in transactions through Skycom and a multinational financial institution. The transactions were ultimately cleared in the United States. They included $7.5 million paid to a British staffing company for engineers assigned to Iran.

In December 2012 and January 2013, Reuters and other media outlets published reports on the relationship between Huawei and Skycom. The reports also said that Skycom had offered equipment made by restricted U.S. vendors to Iran’s largest mobile-network operator.

A bank that continued to process U.S.-dollar transactions connected with business in Iran through the American financial system could face civil or criminal liability. After the reports appeared, the bank providing Huawei with international settlement services asked the company for an explanation. Reuters identified that bank as HSBC. On August 22, 2013, Meng met with HSBC executives and presented a PowerPoint deck describing Skycom as Huawei’s “business partner” and a “third party.” She acknowledged that Huawei had once held shares in Skycom, but said that all of them had since been sold. She also said that Huawei’s business in Iran complied strictly with applicable laws and sanctions.

If the statement Meng signed in 2021 was accurate, her 2013 explanation to HSBC was problematic. It meant she had concealed the true relationship between Huawei and Skycom: the shares had merely moved from one Huawei subsidiary to another Huawei-controlled entity, rather than passing beyond Huawei’s control. HSBC continued its business relationship with Huawei after the meeting.

This leaves two principal legal threads from the early indictment. First, prosecutors alleged that Huawei and Skycom violated sanctions on Iran. Second, they alleged that Huawei concealed its true relationship with Skycom through false statements to the bank, thereby committing bank and wire fraud. Before the 2026 trial began, however, prosecutors decided not to proceed on two of the sanctions counts.

Why does US law have jurisdiction?

Skycom’s business in Iran involved U.S.-dollar transactions cleared through the American financial system, while Huawei’s U.S. subsidiaries also participated in some of the relevant business. Those facts gave prosecutors several possible connections through which to apply U.S. law.

Strictly speaking, the question of U.S. jurisdiction over Huawei has three distinct layers. First, did the cross-border business have sufficiently concrete connections to the United States? Second, could each particular U.S. statute apply to conduct occurring abroad? Third, even if U.S. law applied, could the government obtain evidence, bring the defendants before the court, and enforce any judgment? These questions are often grouped together under the label “long-arm jurisdiction,” but that label can obscure their differences.

The first layer concerns the connection between the conduct and the United States. A cross-border transaction rarely occurs in only one place. A contract might be signed in Hong Kong, the goods sent to Iran, and the payment instruction issued in Europe, while a correspondent bank in New York clears the dollars. If one part of the transaction occurs in the United States and that step violates U.S. law, the transaction is no longer conduct occurring wholly outside the country. U.S. law may then have jurisdiction.

That is the theory behind the dollar transactions in this case. The critical point is not merely that the currency was the U.S. dollar. The indictment specifically alleges that transactions connected with Skycom between 2010 and 2014 cleared through banks located in the United States. Prosecutors therefore contend that part of the banking services, movement of funds, and resulting sanctions risk arose within U.S. territory.

The second layer is that a connection to the United States does not allow every U.S. law to extend indefinitely abroad. The Supreme Court has long applied a principle known as the presumption against extraterritoriality. Morrison v. National Australia Bank in 2010 and RJR Nabisco v. European Community in 2016 set out a two-step method. A court first asks whether Congress clearly indicated that the statute applies abroad. If so, the law applies within the scope Congress specified. If not, the court asks what the statute principally regulates and where the conduct relevant to that focus occurred.

Different charges therefore follow different paths to extraterritorial application. Federal trade-secret law, for example, can reach conduct abroad when the offender is a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or organization, or when an act in furtherance of the offense occurs in the United States. The money-laundering statute provides extraterritorial jurisdiction over a foreign national when part of the conduct occurs in the United States and the relevant transaction exceeds $10,000. That is why each charge in this case requires its own connecting facts.

The third layer concerns the practical ability of the United States to exercise jurisdiction abroad. U.S. statutes may declare that certain crimes have extraterritorial effect, and U.S. courts may hear those cases, but enforcing the law and the resulting judgment is a separate matter. American police, for example, could not arrest Meng directly in Canada. They had to request Canada’s assistance through the extradition process; otherwise, they could only wait for the accused to enter U.S. territory.

“Long-arm jurisdiction” is therefore not a simple or self-explanatory concept. It combines several difficult questions that must be considered separately.

Charges brought by the United States

In February 2020, before Meng returned to China or entered into the deferred prosecution agreement, prosecutors filed a third superseding indictment. It added three principal charges, including conspiracy to steal trade secrets and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with intellectual-property disputes. Because the indictment covers many allegations, this episode focuses on two representative examples. The following account describes what prosecutors are seeking to prove in court. Except where an existing civil judgment says otherwise, these allegations have not yet been established and do not represent the views of this podcast.

With that caveat in place, consider the T-Mobile incident. In 2006, T-Mobile developed a phone-testing system called Tappy in its laboratory. A mechanical arm fitted with a rubber tip could imitate the way a person taps, swipes, and types on a phone screen. In a matter of hours, it could simulate months of use and expose software lag or display faults before a product reached customers.

According to prosecutors, Huawei Device USA began supplying phones to T-Mobile in 2010. In 2012, T-Mobile allowed a small number of authorized Huawei employees into the laboratory to test devices that Huawei planned to deliver. The companies signed a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting photographs, video recordings, and reverse engineering during the testing process. In May 2013, an unauthorized Huawei employee entered the laboratory with several authorized employees and took photographs of the robot. About two weeks later, an authorized Huawei employee removed a key component from the robot and carried it out of the lab. Surveillance cameras recorded both incidents, and the footage later became important evidence for prosecutors.

T-Mobile complained to Huawei. Huawei said that individual employees had violated company policy and later dismissed the employee involved. In 2014, T-Mobile sued Huawei in federal court in Seattle. A jury found in 2017 that Huawei had breached the nondisclosure agreement and misappropriated T-Mobile’s trade secrets, but it did not find that Huawei had acted willfully and maliciously. Federal prosecutors later incorporated the same events into the criminal indictment as part of the trade-secret allegations.

Next is the Quintel incident. In 2009, British company Quintel approached Huawei about possible cooperation in mobile antennas. Futurewei, Huawei’s U.S. research subsidiary, signed a nondisclosure agreement with Quintel limiting the use of confidential information to the parties’ discussions about a collaboration. Quintel then demonstrated an antenna technology that could adjust its angle according to users’ locations and improve signal quality. At Huawei engineers’ request, it later provided additional technical material.

The collaboration did not proceed. Prosecutors allege that, little more than a month after receiving the material, Futurewei filed a patent application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that made extensive use of technology Quintel had disclosed. Futurewei obtained the patent in 2014. Quintel allegedly learned of it only when Futurewei’s earlier patent surfaced during Quintel’s application for a European patent in 2015. Quintel then sued Huawei for trade-secret misappropriation and sought correction of the named inventors.

Prosecutors further allege that Huawei earned approximately $22 million between 2009 and 2016 from products using the intellectual property. They incorporated this episode into the superseding indictment as well.

The core of the case: RICO

At first glance, these events arose at different times, in different places, and on different lines of business. The central move in the 2020 indictment was to connect them by charging Huawei and several affiliated companies with a RICO conspiracy.

RICO is the abbreviation for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Congress enacted it in 1970 as part of the Organized Crime Control Act. Although originally used primarily against the Mafia, it later came to cover corporations and other forms of organization. Its provisions now appear at 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961–1968.

Here, prosecutors charged Huawei and affiliated entities under § 1962(d) with conspiring to violate RICO. Three concepts are particularly important to understanding that charge.

The first is an enterprise. Under RICO, an enterprise may be a legally organized corporation or a group of entities associated and operating continuously for a common purpose. Prosecutors refer to Huawei and several affiliated companies as the “Huawei Enterprise,” alleging that they shared a common purpose and an ongoing organizational relationship.

The second is a pattern of racketeering activity. RICO lists offenses that can serve as predicate acts. The indictment in this case identifies bank fraud, wire fraud, trade-secret theft, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and criminal copyright infringement, among others. To prove the RICO conspiracy, prosecutors must establish an agreement that conspirators would commit a series of related predicate offenses reflecting continuity.

The third concept is conspiracy: an agreement to carry out the RICO violation. A conspiracy is not simply a collection of separate incidents, and no single person must commit every predicate offense. The crucial question is whether the defendants knowingly joined the common agreement. For corporate defendants, the court and jury must also determine which employees’ conduct and states of mind may legally be attributed to each company.

Whether senior management knew, whether the company rewarded employees for obtaining competitors’ confidential information, and whether the incidents followed similar patterns could all serve as evidence of a common agreement. Prosecutors must prove every element of the RICO conspiracy against each defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense, by contrast, can argue that the conduct involved isolated employees acting improperly or outside their authority, that management did not approve it, and that the company took corrective action after learning of it. It can also argue that the incidents were not connected by any common agreement and that prosecutors have not proved an agreement to invest proceeds derived from the alleged pattern in the enterprise. If these objections create reasonable doubt about any element, the corresponding RICO conspiracy charge cannot be sustained.

That is the issue the jury must ultimately decide: whether events scattered across more than two decades were isolated incidents selected and assembled by prosecutors, or whether they prove a company-level agreement satisfying RICO’s requirements for an enterprise, a pattern of racketeering activity, and the use or investment of proceeds.

In April 2026, prosecutors filed a fourth superseding indictment that reorganized the case into fourteen counts. They withdrew two counts on September 4, leaving twelve for trial. Jury selection began in the Eastern District of New York on September 8, and the parties delivered opening statements on September 9.

In those openings, the two sides offered opposing accounts of whether a criminal conspiracy existed within Huawei. Prosecutors said that the company had treated crime as a business strategy over the preceding two decades. Defense counsel said that the government had selected a handful of unrelated incidents from the enormous history of a multinational company, involving people who in some instances had never met and worked thousands of miles apart.

Key Evidence and Ongoing Trial

As noted earlier, prosecutors possess a potentially damaging piece of evidence: the Statement of Facts that Meng signed and confirmed in 2021. The four-page document acknowledges that Huawei controlled Skycom, that Huawei employees operated Skycom’s business in Iran, that the business used U.S.-dollar transactions, and that statements Meng made to HSBC in 2013 were untrue.

Section 6 of the deferred prosecution agreement provides that, if the United States prosecuted Meng again, the government could use the Statement of Facts as evidence and she could not contradict it during the proceeding.

In June 2026, the judge ruled that the statement could also be used in Huawei’s criminal trial. Meng was, and remains, Huawei’s chief financial officer, the judge reasoned, and the statement concerned conduct undertaken as part of her corporate duties. Huawei therefore could not exclude the document.

In effect, the court treated Meng’s statement as Huawei’s own adopted statement, rather than as a statement by an outside witness. Had Meng been treated as a third-party witness, she would have had to appear at trial and be available for cross-examination. Once the statement was classified as Huawei’s own adopted statement, prosecutors did not need to call Meng in person in order to offer it.

The jury must assess every count separately: which alleged facts were proved, which conduct may be attributed to each corporate defendant, whether that conduct satisfies the elements of each offense, and whether the separate incidents were connected by a conspiracy.

Many stages remain. A first-instance verdict may not arrive until the end of 2026 or later. If the jury finds Huawei guilty of the RICO conspiracy, the company could face a substantial fine and forfeiture of unlawful proceeds, as well as compliance monitoring after judgment.

Which of the two competing narratives will cross the legal threshold? How will United States v. Huawei—a case stretching across more than two decades, multiple countries, and intense diplomatic and political controversy—ultimately end? We will return to those questions after the Eastern District of New York reaches a decision. Look for Part II of this story.

This case remains pending. Except for final civil judgments and procedural rulings already in force, all statements below concerning criminal liability describe allegations by prosecutors, statements made at trial, or witness testimony. Huawei has pleaded not guilty. The trial information in this episode is current through September 18, 2026.

Key Timeline

  • 2007–2014: According to the Statement of Facts confirmed by Meng, Skycom’s shares moved from Hua Ying Management to Canicula, another entity still controlled by Huawei. Meng served as a Skycom director; Huawei made Skycom’s major business decisions in Iran; and related dollar payments cleared through the United States.
  • 2009–2016: Quintel’s antenna discussions with Futurewei, the subsequent patent application, and resulting litigation were later incorporated into the intellectual-property allegations.
  • December 2012–August 2013: Media reports examined the relationship between Huawei and Skycom. On August 22, 2013, Meng described Skycom to a bank as Huawei’s “business partner” and a “third party.”
  • 2013–2017: The Tappy incident occurred, after which T-Mobile brought a civil action. In 2017, a jury found that Huawei had breached its confidentiality obligations and misappropriated T-Mobile’s trade secrets, but did not find that it acted willfully and maliciously.
  • August 2018–January 2019: An indictment was filed under seal in the Eastern District of New York. Meng was arrested in Canada in December 2018, and the indictment was unsealed in January 2019.
  • February 2020: The third superseding indictment added a RICO conspiracy, conspiracy to steal trade secrets, and related wire-fraud conspiracy allegations, bringing the case to sixteen counts.
  • September 2021–2022: Meng entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and returned to China. After she fulfilled the agreement, the charges against her were dismissed while the corporate case continued.
  • April–June 2026: A fourth superseding indictment reorganized the case into fourteen counts. The court later ruled that Meng’s Statement of Facts could be used in the corporate trial.
  • September 2026: Prosecutors declined to proceed on two sanctions counts, leaving twelve counts for trial. Jury selection began on September 8, and the parties delivered opening statements on September 9.

Key Parties and Events

  • Meng Wanzhou: Huawei’s chief financial officer. She is no longer a defendant in the corporate trial, but the four-page Statement of Facts she signed in 2021 has become important evidence.
  • Skycom, Hua Ying Management, and Canicula: The transfer of shares and the entities’ actual control relationships form the basis of prosecutors’ account of Huawei’s business in Iran and its statements to the bank. The charging documents did not identify the bank; Reuters identified it as HSBC.
  • T-Mobile and Tappy: Tappy is a phone-testing robot designed to simulate a user’s finger movements. The civil judgment is final, but the same facts must be tested again under the higher burden of proof governing the criminal case.
  • Quintel and Futurewei: Prosecutors allege that Futurewei applied for a patent after receiving Quintel’s confidential antenna information. The criminal allegation remains for the jury to decide.
  • Deferred prosecution agreement (DPA): An agreement suspending prosecution for a specified period. If the defendant performs the agreed obligations, prosecutors apply to dismiss the charges. A DPA is neither an acquittal nor a guilty plea.
  • Statement of Facts: Meng confirmed that its contents were true and accurate. Section 6 of the agreement primarily addresses the document’s use if she were prosecuted again. Its use in Huawei’s trial instead depends on whether the court finds that the company adopted her statement.
  • Contacts, jurisdiction, and extraterritoriality: Dollar clearing through the United States and participation by U.S. subsidiaries can create connections to the country, but whether a particular federal criminal statute applies to conduct abroad must still be analyzed statute by statute. The use of dollars alone is not enough.
  • RICO conspiracy: Under 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d), prosecutors allege an agreement to violate § 1962(a) by using or investing income derived from a pattern of predicate offenses in the “Huawei Enterprise.” The government must prove not only the enterprise, predicate pattern, and common agreement, but also the required relationship between the proceeds and their use or investment.
  • Corporate attribution and the burden of proof: When an employee’s conduct and state of mind can be attributed to a corporation is a central issue. Prosecutors must prove every count against each defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. The admission of evidence does not require the jury to credit it.

Principal Cases and Statutes

  • United States v. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (E.D.N.Y. No. 1:18-cr-00457): the principal case discussed in this episode.
  • T-Mobile USA, Inc. v. Huawei Device USA, Inc. (W.D. Wash. No. 2:14-cv-01351): the civil Tappy case.
  • Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U.S. 247 (2010): reaffirmed the presumption against extraterritorial application of federal statutes and focused the inquiry on the object of the particular law and the location of the relevant conduct.
  • RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U.S. 325 (2016): established the two-step extraterritoriality framework and held that some substantive RICO provisions can reach conduct abroad to the extent the relevant predicate offenses themselves apply extraterritorially. It did not resolve every question concerning the extraterritorial application of every RICO provision.
  • 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961, 1962: RICO’s definitions, substantive prohibitions, and conspiracy provision.
  • 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1344, 1832, 1956, 1512, 2319: Provisions concerning wire fraud, bank fraud, trade-secret theft, money laundering, witness or investigative obstruction, and criminal copyright infringement. These are the principal sources of the predicate offenses listed in the indictment.
  • 18 U.S.C. § 1837 and § 1956(f): The extraterritorial provisions for trade-secret offenses and money laundering. The former focuses on the offender’s status or an act in furtherance committed in the United States; for foreign nationals, the latter requires conduct occurring in part in the United States and a transaction exceeding $10,000.
  • 50 U.S.C. § 1705 and 31 C.F.R. Part 560: The criminal provision and administrative regulations associated with the Iran-sanctions allegations. Prosecutors declined to proceed at trial on two separate sanctions counts.

Principal Sources