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A woman uses a smartphone at the Huawei Customer Experience Centre in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: EPA-EFE

Huawei takes Sweden to court after Nordic country bans Chinese tech giant’s 5G products

  • Huawei said it initiated proceedings against Sweden under the World Bank Group after the Nordic country banned the tech giant from rolling out 5G products
  • ‘The Swedish authorities’ decision to discriminate against Huawei and exclude it from the 5G roll-out has significantly harmed Huawei’s investment in Sweden,’ Huawei said
Huawei
Huawei Technologies Co. said on Sunday it has initiated arbitration proceedings against Sweden under the World Bank Group after the Nordic country banned the Chinese tech giant from rolling out its 5G products.
“The Swedish authorities’ decision to discriminate against Huawei and exclude it from the 5G roll-out has significantly harmed Huawei’s investment in Sweden, in breach of Sweden’s international obligations,” the Chinese company said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.
The company had therefore “initiated arbitration proceedings” under the World Bank Group’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) “against the Kingdom of Sweden following a number of measures taken by the Swedish authorities targeting directly Huawei’s investments in Sweden and excluding Huawei from the roll-out of 5G network products and services in the country,” Huawei added.

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Huawei did not specify what damages it was seeking, but according to public broadcaster SVT, the initial sum sought was 5.2 billion Swedish kroner (US$550 million), but it could end up being much higher.

Following the UK in mid-2020, Sweden became the second country in Europe and the first in the European Union to explicitly ban network operators from using Huawei equipment in the build-up of the infrastructure needed to run its 5G network.

Sweden also ordered Huawei to remove already installed equipment by January 1, 2025.

After an appeal from Huawei a Swedish court confirmed the decision by Sweden’s Post and Telecom Authority in June 2021.

The decision strained relations between Sweden and China, with Beijing at the time warning that PTS’s decision could have “consequences” for the Scandinavian country’s companies in China, prompting Swedish telecoms giant and Huawei competitor Ericsson to fear retaliation.

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