Huawei pleads not guilty to new U.S. criminal charges in 2018 case

FILE PHOTO: A Huawei company logo at the Shenzhen International Airport·Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - China's Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, the world's largest telecommunications equipment maker, on Wednesday pleaded not guilty in a New York federal court to new charges in a 2018 case against the company.

The latest indictment accused Huawei of conspiring to steal trade secrets from six U.S. technology companies for two decades, lying about its business in North Korea and helping Iran track protesters during the 2009 anti-government demonstrations in that country.

Huawei had previously been charged by the U.S. government with bank fraud and violating sanctions against Iran by using Skycom Tech Co, a suspected front company, to obtain U.S. goods and move money via the international banking system. It pleaded not guilty to those charges last year.

At an arraignment in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, Thomas Green, a U.S. lawyer for Huawei, entered the not guilty plea on behalf of the company and three subsidiaries, including Futurewei Technologies Inc, its U.S.-based research arm.

Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou is fighting extradition from Canada in connection with the original indictment in the case, which accuses her of misrepresenting Huawei's relationship with Skycom to the global bank HSBC Holdings Plc. She has said she is innocent.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

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