Huawei CFO not allowed to use HSBC documents in US extradition case

By Moira Warburton

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - A Canadian judge has denied Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou's application to add a trove of documents her legal team received from HSBC as evidence to her U.S. extradition case, the judge announced on Friday.

Meng, 49, is facing extradition from Canada to the United States on charges of bank fraud for allegedly misleading HSBC about Huawei's business dealings in Iran, potentially causing the bank to break U.S. sanctions. She has been held under house arrest in Vancouver since December 2018, when she was first detained.

Her legal team received over 300 pages of internal documents from HSBC through a court on Hong Kong, which the defence argued should be entered as evidence because they would disprove the basis for the United States' extradition claim.

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes, who has been overseeing the case in the British Columbia Supreme Court since its inception, disagreed. Her reasons will be released in writing in approximately ten days, Holmes said.

"We respect the court's ruling, but regret this outcome," Huawei Canada said in a statement released after the ruling, insisting that the documents showed HSBC was aware of Huawei's business dealings in Iran, proving that the United States' account of the case was "manifestly unreliable."

The Canadian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meng is set to appear in court in early August. Her extradition hearings are scheduled to finish by the end of that month.

 

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Vancouver; editing by Diane Craft)