US case against Huawei CFO 'flawed,' her lawyers say

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Lawyers for a senior executive for Chinese communications giant Huawei Technologies attacked the case against her as “fatally flawed” and full of “shifting theories” during an extradition hearing Friday.

Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder and the company’s chief financial officer, at Vancouver’s airport in late 2018. The U.S. wants her extradited to face fraud charges. Her arrest infuriated Beijing, which sees her case as a political move designed to prevent China’s rise.

The U.S. accuses Huawei of using a Hong Kong shell company called Skycom to sell equipment to Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. It says Meng, 49, committed fraud by misleading the HSBC bank about the company’s business dealings in Iran.

The lengthy extradition proceeding is entering the committal phase which involves arguments over the U.S. government’s request to extradite Meng.

Defense lawyer Eric Gottardi said fraud cases are normally straightforward, with a lie being told that results in someone losing money.

“This case is different,” he said. “The alleged deception is ambiguous at best. The risk of economic loss to the alleged victim HSBC is wholly illusionary.”

The shifting theories put forward by the U.S. “underscores the weakness of their case,” he said.

“There is no actual loss in this case. None of the requesting states theories of risk of loss pass muster. They all are either non-existent or entirely speculative.”

The threshold for granting an extradition might not be high but “it is a meaningful threshold,” said Gottardi.

“A requesting state requires a plausible case. Here we say the case falls far short.”

Gottardi disputed claims by Canadian government lawyers that during...