Seagate sold hard drives to Huawei, breaking export rules, US alleges
- The Chinese telecoms giant is banned from receiving US exports and certain foreign-made items without government approval
- Seagate says the hard disk drives are not subject to the regulations and that it did not engage in prohibited conduct
Seagate Technology Holdings said in a filing on Wednesday the US government has warned the company that it may have violated export control laws by providing hard disk drives to a customer that a source familiar with the situation identified as Huawei Technologies.
Reuters was the first to report the disclosure on Wednesday and to identify Huawei as the customer. Huawei is on the US Commerce Department’s entity list and banned from receiving US exports and certain foreign-made items without government approval.
Seagate was warned in a “proposed charging letter” it received from the Commerce Department on August 29, according to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The filing said the company’s position is that the hard disk drives are not subject to the US export regulations, and that it did not engage in prohibited conduct as alleged by the Commerce Department.
Seagate’s filing did not identify the customer. Seagate paused its shipments to Huawei a year ago, said the source familiar with the matter.