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CNBC published an article online citing a study conducted by Christopher Balding, an associate professor at Fulbright University Vietnam, and London-based conservative think tank Henry Jackson Society. The study looked at resumes and curriculum vitae of Huawei employees and they report that “key mid-level technical personnel employed by Huawei have strong backgrounds in work closely associated with intelligence gathering and military activities.” The paper said that some employees had “to specific instances of hacking or industrial espionage conducted against Western firms”.

The resumes and personal information was leaked when a website and database run from a recruitment firm was compromised and published online.

In response, Huawei has claimed they are unable to verify the Huawei employee information and cannot confirm whether the “veracity of all of the information published online”. In response, Huawei also states that “Huawei maintains strict policies for hiring candidates with military or government backgrounds. During the hiring process, these candidates are required to provide documentation proving they have ended their relationships with the military or the government”.

A Huawei spokesperson also added: “We welcome professional and fact-based reporting on investigations into Huawei’s transparency. We hope that any further research papers will contain less conjecture when drawing their conclusions, and avoid so many speculative statements about what Professor Balding ‘believes,’ ‘infers,’ and ‘cannot rule out,’”.

If you have questions about how the Huawei inclusion on the BIS entity list means for your business, contact export license attorney David Hsu at 832-896-6288 or by email at dh@gjatradelaw.com, attorney.dave@yahoo.com.