FedEx strongly denies wrongdoing after China accuses US firm of shipping ‘controlled knives’ to Hong Kong

US delivery firm FedEx on Wednesday denied any wrongdoing after being accused by Chinese official media of trying to ship controlled knives to Hong Kong, the latest controversial incident involving the company.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday that Chinese authorities had began an investigation into FedEx for “illegally accepting controlled knives to be sent to Hong Kong” from the mainland.

But FedEx said the shipment in question “was handled correctly via standard security protocol”.

“The package was from a regular shipper and was handed over to appropriate authorities by FedEx, consistent with our regular process and procedures. The package never left its origin city, was never delivered, and remains with the authorities,” said a strongly worded FedEx statement, seen as a stronger response to the two previous accusations in May and August.

“FedEx delivers more than 15 million packages a day around the world, and we have multiple layers of security in place in the more than 220 territories and countries we serve.”

It is the third investigation launched by China against FedEx in the last four months, raising the odds that the US courier will be placed on China’s soon to be released unreliable entity list, a blacklist of foreign firms that will be subject to sanctions by Beijing.

FedEx was accused in May of knowingly shipping packages meant for Huawei in China to the US only days after the Chinese firm was placed on a US government blacklist that bans American firms from selling products to the telecommunications giant.

On this occasion, FedEx apologised on its Chinese social media account for the “mistransportation” of the Huawei packages, claiming they were re-routed in error.

FedEx’s response failed to convince Beijing and Ma Junsheng, the head of China’s State Post Bureau, said at the start of June that the government had launched a formal probe.

In June, Memphis-based FedEx filed a lawsuit against the US government, saying it should not be held liable if it inadvertently shipped products that violated a ban on exports to some Chinese companies.

But Xinhua reported at the end of July that FedEx’s “mistransportation” explanation was “not in line with facts”, with the US courier suspected of not delivering “more than 100 parcels” to Huawei in China on top of other evidence of illegal activities.

In August, FedEx was accused of allowing a gun to be shipped from the US to a Chinese sportswear company in Fujian province. On this occasion, FedEx said it discovered the gun and turned it over to Chinese authorities, with local police looking into the case.

According to China’s State Post Bureau, FedEx ranked at the bottom among 23 major couriers in China in terms of handling customer complaints in July, with only 90 per cent of properly handled. This marked a rapid deterioration from June, when 100 per cent of complaints against FedEx were dealt with in a satisfactory manner.