Huawei chief financial officer (CFO) Meng Wanzhou is now arguing that the United States\u2019 case which was submitted to Canada is \u201cso replete with intentional and reckless error\u201d that it violates her rights, Reuters reports.<\/p>\n
Meng is fighting against being extradited to the US, which has charged her with bank fraud and accused her of misleading HSBC about Huawei\u2019s business in Iran.<\/p>\n
The latter accusation uses as key evidence a PowerPoint presentation given by Meng to an HSBC banker in 2013.<\/p>\n
In the presentation, Meng refers to Skycom Tech as a \u2018business partner,\u2019 whereas the US describes it as an unofficial subsidiary.<\/p>\n
Her lawyers claim that the US prosecutors have omitted important information discussed by Meng in the presentation \u2013 meaning that this evidence is misleading.<\/p>\n
US claims that only junior HSBC employees knew of the relationship between Huawei and Skycom have also been contested by Meng\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n
They said it does not make sense that HSBC\u2019s senior management would be unaware of the relationship between Huawei and Skycom since Huawei is one of HSBC\u2019s largest clients.<\/p>\n
A $900-million credit facility with HSBC allegedly provided Huawei was also denied.<\/p>\n
The lawyers instead claim that of its $1.6-billion credit arrangement across 26 banks, HSBC\u2019s portion was $80 million, was never used, and was cancelled in 2017.
\nFailed first attempt<\/p>\n
These new arguments follow a failed first attempt by Meng\u2019s lawyers to block her extradition.<\/p>\n
Meng had argued that the US was purposefully disguising an allegation of sanctions violations as a fraud charge in order to get around Canada\u2019s double criminality rule.<\/p>\n
Her lawyers argued that if the transactions she was being held for had taken place in Canada, they would not have violated any local sanctions.<\/p>\n
However, this argument was rejected, as the court ruled that fraud could still be prosecuted in Canada if a US bank was put at risk for violating US sanctions.<\/p>\n