In a brief announcement released today, Canada’s Department of Justice has announced that it has arrested the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, Meng Wanzhou. According to Canadian government, Meng was arrested on December 1st by request of the United States, who is seeking to have her extradited. A bail hearing is being planned for Friday to determine what will happen next.

Outside of the arrest itself, very little information about the case is being released at this time, in large part because a publication ban that was requested by Meng. Canadian authorities for their part are not providing any details beyond the arrest, and various US news organizations have been unable to get a comment from US Department of Justice officials.

Huawei itself has been increasingly on the rocks with the US for the past year. The company’s handset sales have all but come to a halt after AT&T backed out on a deal earlier this year. Meanwhile unconfirmed reports surfaced in April that the US was investigating Huawei for possibly violating Iran export bans, a scenario that got fellow Chinese firm ZTE into significant trouble earlier this year.

Like ZTE, Huawei relies in part on US technology imports for its products, and per US export regulations, those products are in turn prohibited from being exported to Iran and other restricted nations. In the case of ZTE, the matter was only finally settled after the company underwent an extensive restructuring, as the United States government has made it clear that it intends to strongly enforce its export regulations. If Meng has been arrested for violating these restrictions, then this would mark the start of another significant technology export regulation case for the US.

Sources: Reuters, Associated Press, & New York Times

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  • webdoctors - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link

    Dec 1st arrest only announced today? That's secret police gestapo stuff right there. Should've been announced same day, no reason to hide arrests of folks. Strange no reason given, I thought that was required.
  • jcc5169 - Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - link

    Only if one is a citizen, which Meng is not
  • ZolaIII - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link

    So worse then Gestapo then. Its nice to see we democratically progressed.
  • FunBunny2 - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link

    you get to complain only if you didn't vote for the Manchurian President. actions such as this are now routine. MAGA!!!!!!!
  • lindagist - Sunday, January 20, 2019 - link

    It is indeed worst than the acts of <a href="https://lindagist.com/">Gestapo</a>
  • BedfordTim - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link

    Oh well thats OK then.
  • Death666Angel - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link

    "a publication ban that was requested by Meng"
    Why does every arrest have to be public? In Germany, that is against data privacy rules, unless those are overruled by public interest in the case, which is handled on a case by case basis (and often ignored by tabloids).
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link

    Yeah, it interferes with rounding up lots of people.
  • MonkeyPaw - Thursday, December 6, 2018 - link

    I don’t think it’s so dramatic. Since she was arrested in Canada, there is an option for a publication ban to protect the detainee’s reputation or for safety. She’s not yet in US custody. If anything, they honored her request for privacy, probably until the hearing date was set, at which time there would probably be public awareness of the arrest.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, December 10, 2018 - link

    If a person can be arrested and released without the media being notified then that person could have an incentive (e.g. reputation) to suppress the information. Otherwise, there is little, if any, incentive, for them, in temporarily suppressing it. It also opens the door to abusing the arrest system. Frivolously arresting a lot of people is a tactic that happens and should not be encouraged.

    Remember when a literal black helicopter was sent to a high school to arrest Ron Paul supporters trying to caucus, after Romney hacks had kicked them out of the gym? The arresting officer literally said "We'll tell you back at the station" when asked what the arrest charges were. The same line was used to arrest people mildly dancing. When you have media blackouts for arrests, you get a lot more "We'll tell you what you're being arrested for when the cleverer people at the precinct (or the Washington lawyers they've called) figure out what pretext to invent".

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