US judge halts ZTE’s five-year probation, ending Chinese company’s penalty for shipping telecoms gear to Iran and North Korea
- A US judge ruled that ZTE should be allowed to end its five-year probation on the final day of the penalty for breaching sanctions against Iran and North Korea
- ZTE had been accused of violating probation over an alleged conspiracy to bring Chinese nationals to the United States to conduct research at ZTE through visa fraud
The ruling came on the final day of the company’s probation for illegally shipping US technology to Iran and North Korea.
Trading in ZTE shares was suspended before markets opened in Shenzhen and Hong Kong on request from the company pending an announcement, after the decision by US District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Texas. The company’s shares declined earlier this month after word of a possible probation violation surfaced.
ZTE had been accused of violating probation over an alleged conspiracy to bring Chinese nationals to the United States to conduct research at ZTE through visa fraud.
According to an indictment unsealed last March, a former ZTE research director and a Georgia Institute of Technology professor allegedly conspired to bring Chinese nationals to the US to conduct research at ZTE from at least 2014 through 2018 while on J-1 visas sponsored by the university.
While ZTE has not been charged in the visa case, which is pending in Atlanta, Georgia, Kinkeade held a hearing in Dallas last week on the fraud allegation as a possible violation of ZTE’s probation.