A Bay Area subsidiary of a Chinese firm seen as a national security threat by U.S. officials infiltrated a meeting during a telecommunications summit at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters and sent information to its offices in China, a new lawsuit claims.
Jesse Hong says in the lawsuit that he was a software architect for Chinese smartphone giant Huawei’s subsidiary Futurewei Technologies in Santa Clara from 2014 until he was fired in March of this year. He alleges that in 2016, Huawei directed two Futurewei employees to deceive their way into an annual “TIP Summit” for telecommunications companies — most of them startups competing against Huawei — that was held at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park.
The alleged infiltration occurred after Facebook had denied Huawei’s request to attend the social networking firm’s closed-door meeting with U.S. companies, according to the suit. Huawei told Hong and two other Futurewei employees to register for the meeting using fake U.S.-company names, Hong claims in the suit, which was filed late last month in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Hong refused to take part, he claims in the suit. So Huawei told Futurewei manager Sean Chen and another employee to use a “front U.S. company name” to “register and infiltrate into the meeting that Facebook had banned it from attending,” according to the suit. Hong “believed that theft of trade secrets and/or transfer of such secrets to Huawei in China was illegal,” the suit said.
Huawei has faced trouble in the U.S. starting in 2012 when Congressional investigators determined the company was a threat to U.S. security, that its products could be used for spying and that it “exhibits a pattern of disregard for the intellectual property rights of other entities and companies in the United States.” In December, members of the Senate and House intelligence committees wrote to the Federal Communications Commission expressing concerns about “Chinese espionage in general, and Huawei’s role in that espionage in particular.” The letter referenced “Huawei’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party, as well as to Chinese intelligence and security services.”
Huawei, which did not respond immediately to a request for comment, has denied that the company or its products are a security threat to the U.S.
In Hong’s lawsuit, he claims that after Chen and the other employee attended the summit at Facebook, Huawai generated a report — which included plans of Huawei competitors — and sent the information to Huawei product teams in China. The other employee, called only “Sam” in the lawsuit, also used consulting work with U.S. companies to obtain confidential information, and provided it to Huawei, the suit alleges. Hong claims to have “observed Chen and Sam in possession of competitors’ confidential information.”
Hong claims he was fired for raising concerns about Huawei’s activities. He is seeking $105 million in damages.
Facebook did not immediately provide answers to questions asked by this news organization. The social media giant admitted in June it had shared user data with Huawei and other companies. Huawei said it had never collected or stored Facebook user data.
The Telecom Infra Project (TIP), which has more than 500 member companies, said it was reviewing the lawsuit’s claims but would not comment on a matter under litigation.
