On July 23, local time, the Supreme Court of British Columbia dis-closed evidence for the next stage of court hearings in Meng Wanzhou's extradition case. On May 27, the court ruled that the Meng Wanzhou case was, in essence, related to fraud.
The disclosed evidence suggests that Meng's case was masterminded by the U.S. and entirely political in nature. HSBC was involved throughout the scheme, taking actions such as maliciously framing Meng and fabri-cating evidence. This indicated that Meng is innocent.
The crime was falsified and allegations were groundless
According to the Record of Case that the U.S. submitted to the Canadian court, Meng concealed Huawei's relationship with Skycom Tech. Co., Ltd. ("Skycom"), which misled HSBC into continuing providing bank-ing services to Huawei. Therefore, HSBC violated U.S. sanctions against Iran and faced the risk of civil and criminal penalties. Meng's conduct amounted to fraud.
The only piece of key evidence in this case was a PowerPoint presenta-tion that Meng delivered to HSBC. The disclosed materials included the full text of the PowerPoint presentation and correspondence between HSBC and Huawei. However, it was found that the U.S. deliberately concealed and misinterpreted key information, meaning the allegations were inconsistent with facts.
HSBC was aware of the relationship between Huawei and Skycom throughout the process
HSBC professed that it was unclear about the relationship between Huawei and Skycom, but this was a blatant lie.
Skycom was Huawei's partner in Iran, and the relationship between these two companies was clear. Huawei had held shares in Skycom and Meng Wanzhou had once been on Skycom's Board of Directors for a short period of time. In 2007, Huawei sold its shares in Skycom and in April 2009, Meng left her position as a board member. Since then, the two companies had maintained normal business dealings.
HSBC was aware of Huawei's business in Iran throughout the process, and correspondence between the three parties in 2010 suggested HSBC had been fully aware of the relationship between Huawei and Skycom. According to the 2009 and 2010 financial statements that Huawei sent to HSBC, the bank fully understood Skycom's business operations in Iran.
HSBC attempted to justify their false arguments and make their evi-dence sound more convincing by claiming that only "junior" employees were aware of the relationship between Huawei and Skycom. The bank went on to say that these "junior" employees did not report the relevant information to "senior" executives. Therefore, these executives could only assess the associated risks based on the PowerPoint presentation provided by Meng.
This rhetoric is simply nonsense.
As the world's largest telecom equipment manufacturer and a Fortune 500 company, Huawei had been the 17th largest customer of HSBC's Global Liquidity and Cash Management Department. In addition to this, the two companies had collaborated for nearly 20 years. Therefore, having a "junior" employee serving as Huawei's account manager would have been unreasonable as well as unbelievable. HSBC pointed its fingers at their own employees, which was neither a reason to exempt them from liability nor an act that complied with the regulations of the banking industry.
It is particularly worth noting that in December 2012, HSBC signed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) due to the bank's own misconduct. This misconduct included vi-olations of U.S. sanctions against Iran. HSBC assured the U.S. DOJ that it would complete remediation in relation to all its group customers. How could it have been possible that HSBC was unaware of the relationship between Huawei and Skycom throughout this process? If HSBC was unaware, then this would imply that they deceived the U.S. DOJ and should be subject to heavy penalties.
The most basic compliance requirement for large financial institutions is "know your customers". HSBC had a dedicated risk management committee and claimed that all of its branches had established compli-ance departments. If their risk assessment relied solely on Meng's Pow-erPoint presentation, then why did they have so many compliance staff?
In order to frame Meng, HSBC defamed itself and seriously damaged a reputation that it had cultivated for over a century.
