Huawei CFO arrest in Canada causes collateral damage as telecom giant freezes Japanese robot maker’s contract

The surprise arrest of Huawei Technologies’ Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is about to impact one of the Chinese company’s suppliers in Japan.

Yaskawa Electric, which supplies industrial robots for Huawei’s smartphone and telecom gear factories, saw all orders for its machines put on hold after the arrest, President Hiroshi Ogasawara said in an interview on Wednesday. Of Yaskawa’s 448.5 billion yen (US$4 billion) in revenue for the fiscal year that ended in February, 23 per cent came from China.

“My people on the ground in China say that Huawei is turned upside down internally,” Ogasawara said. “All kinds of capital expenditure deals are temporarily on hold as they figure things out.”