A US judge on Tuesday ruled that China’s ZTE Corp (中興通訊), a top telecommunications equipment maker, should be allowed to end its five-year probation from a 2017 guilty plea.
The ruling came on the final day of the company’s probation for illegally shipping US technology to Iran.
It marks the end of a criminal case against ZTE, although it is still subject to a 2018 settlement agreement with the US Department of Commerce.
Photo: Tingshu Wang, Reuters
ZTE had been accused of breaching probation over an alleged conspiracy to commit visa fraud.
An indictment unsealed in March last year said that a former ZTE research director and a Georgia Institute of Technology professor allegedly conspired to bring Chinese nationals to the US to conduct research at ZTE from at least 2014 through 2018 while on J-1 visas sponsored by the university.
While ZTE has not been charged in the visa case, which is pending in Atlanta, Georgia, US District Judge Ed Kinkeade last week held a hearing in Dallas, Texas, on the fraud allegation as a possible breach of ZTE’s probation.
In his ruling on Tuesday, the judge found ZTE was legally responsible for the actions of the former ZTE director.
However, he decided to not take any further action against ZTE, which had reached the maximum term of probation and, ZTE argued, had also been fined the maximum.
As part of its 2017 guilty plea deal, ZTE paid US$892 million.
There was an “open question about legal tools left for the court,” the judge wrote.
Despite the favorable ruling, the judge encouraged the government to pursue any reasonable charges, and criminal or civil penalties, against the company, especially over export compliance matters.
The visa issue was not the first problem that surfaced for ZTE since the plea deal. In 2018, the US Department of Commerce found that ZTE made false statements about disciplining executives tied to the illegal shipments to Iran and, as a result, issued a total ban on the company buying US components.
ZTE, crippled by the move, paid a US$1 billion penalty and agreed to change its leadership and cooperate with a second 10-year monitor, as part of an agency agreement lifting the ban.
In 2018, the judge also took action over the false statements, extending ZTE’s probation and court-appointed monitor from three to five years.
In his ruling on Tuesday, the judge said that ZTE argued that the visa-fraud related events occurred more than three years ago, and that new leadership had brought an improved export compliance program.
“The company has made strides,” the judge said, adding that ZTE’s export control and compliance programs were effectively “nonexistent” when it was originally sentenced.
He said he considered ZTE’s compliance a mitigating factor, but that its record on compliance could be summarized in one word: “Sometimes.”
ZTE in a statement said that it is “proud of the significant improvement in the company’s compliance program and culture.”
It said the improvement has been acknowledged over the years.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS