New York – Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies has rejected allegations by US concern Motorola of industrial espionage, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Reporting on developments after Motorola filed suit in mid-July against Huawei, the Wall Street Journal said that the Chinese company called the allegations ‘groundless and utterly without merit.’
The denial came after reports emerged that the Schaumburg, Illinois-based Motorola had filed suit claiming that Huawei had worked with over a dozen Motorola employees to gain confidential information about its cellular network equipment.
As evidence, Motorola presented the federal court in Illinois with e-mail correspondence between the now former employees and Huawei management, the report said.
The industrial espionage took place over a number of years, with Motorola alleging that Huawei founder and supervisory board chairman Ren Zhengfei himself was involved.
The corporate espionage allegations come at a time when Motorola is withdrawing from the wireless network field, after reaching a deal to sell its wireless network infrastructure to the Nokia Siemens Networks company for 1.2 billion dollars. Motorola still aimed to retain most of its intellectual property rights.
