ZTE Calls US Government Ban ‘Unfair’, Plans To Fight It

As you might have heard, Chinese company ZTE has recently found themselves in a bit of hot water with the US government where they were accused of circumventing US sanctions on Iran in 2016, and where they allegedly sold technology from the US to Iran via multiple shell companies.

As a result, ZTE was banned from buying products from US companies, such as Qualcomm which is no doubt a huge blow to them as Qualcomm is probably the largest manufacturer of chipsets in smartphones. Unsurprisingly ZTE isn’t too happy about this and has called the ban “unfair” and announced their plans to fight it.

In a statement released by the company, “Until the relevant investigation is concluded, the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) insists on imposing the most stringent sanctions on the company. It is extremely unfair to ZTE and we cannot accept it!” ZTE claims that they had previously self-reported the breaches and even hired a firm to conduct an investigation over the allegations that they violated the sanctions.

They also claim that the US Department of Commerce ignored the fact that they have spent as much as $50 million to learn and comply with US export control laws. This is a huge blow to the company because recent reports have suggested that not only could this affect ZTE buying from Qualcomm, but it could also affect their license of Google’s Android operating system as well.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Legal, ZTE