Timeline: Chinese telecoms giants Huawei, ZTE incur wrath of Washington over Iran sanction violations
- Huawei’s CFO was detained at the request of the US government, allegedly because she attempted to evade the US trade embargo on Iran
Major Chinese telecoms companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp have been in the crosshairs of the US-China trade war over national security concerns, but are also incurring the wrath of Washington for allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran. Here is a timeline of the major events:
14 July 2012: The FBI opens a criminal investigation into ZTE’s sale of banned US equipment to Iran.
7 March 2016: Trading of ZTE’s shares suspended in Hong Kong and Shenzhen after Reuters reported that the US Department of Commerce was about to slap export restrictions on the company for violating Iran sanctions.
8 March 2017: ZTE agreed to pay the US government US$1.2 billion in fines in exchange for suspending a seven-year denial of export privileges, which could be reactivated if any aspect of the deal was not met.
9 January 2018: Huawei Technologies confirmed that a deal to distribute its smartphones through US telecommunications carrier AT&T has been called off.