According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, it appears that Huawei is under criminal investigation over the Iran sanctions. The report does not share much details save for the fact that Huawei is under investigation, so it is unclear as to whether or not this could be the same sanctions that ZTE was accused of violating.For those unfamiliar, several years ago ZTE was accused of violating sanctions against Iran where US technology was not allowed to be sold to the country. ZTE has since accepted responsibility for that, but fast forward to today, ZTE has since been hit with an export ban where they will not be allowed to export US-based technology, such as chipsets from Qualcomm and also the potential of losing their Android license.
Like we said it is unclear if the investigation against Huawei is over the same issue, but if it were we wouldn’t be surprised. A couple of months ago US intelligence agencies had warned against buying tech from Huawei and ZTE over national security concerns. This has resulted in deals made with AT&T and Verizon to fall through where Huawei was supposed to officially launch their products on US carriers this year.
Huawei has since responded to the investigation in a statement that reads, “Huawei complies with all applicable laws and regulations where it operates, including the applicable export control and sanction laws and regulations of the UN, US and EU.”