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Canada Arrests Top Huawei Executive For Allegedly Violating Iran Sanctions (theglobeandmail.com)
Canada has arrested Huawei's chief financial officer on suspicion of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. "Wanzhou Meng, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei's board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver at the request of U.S. authorities," reports The Globe and Mail. From the report: "Wanzhou Meng was arrested in Vancouver on December 1. She is sought for extradition by the United States, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday," Justice department spokesperson Ian McLeod said in a statement to The Globe and Mail. "As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time. The ban was sought by Ms. Meng.
A Canadian source with knowledge of the arrest said U.S. law enforcement authorities are alleging that Ms. Meng tried to evade the U.S. trade embargo against Iran but provided no further details. Since at least 2016, U.S. authorities have been reviewing Huawei's alleged shipping of U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws.
A Canadian source with knowledge of the arrest said U.S. law enforcement authorities are alleging that Ms. Meng tried to evade the U.S. trade embargo against Iran but provided no further details. Since at least 2016, U.S. authorities have been reviewing Huawei's alleged shipping of U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws.
That isn't what that means. That veil protects the investors, not the employees.
The reality is that many legal protections are afforded to the corporation by the presumption that it wants to do the right thing; it isn't a person, it isn't self-aware, so it can't desire to break the law.
So a law that bans a broad action, but where the individual steps are all otherwise-legal, then the crime falls on the corporation, and the individuals are all protected. And the corporation just gets a fine, because it didn't have intent, the sum of the (legal) individual actions simply added up to a crime.
But when the individual actions were themselves illegal, then it is entirely the fault of the employee; the corporation can't intentionally want you to do something wrong, it is just a piece of paper. If you were ordered to commit a crime, that was your boss committing a crime, and you were the accomplice. So the corporation is protected. Still financially responsible, though.
Here, the individual action violates sanctions, so that is an individual crime by the employee. And the resulting trade that the company was intentionally doing also is criminal. So a situation like this, you have a whole bunch of individual employees who committed crimes, but the corporation was aware of the trade and the people who should have stopped it didn't, so those acts land on both the individuals, and the company.
I am not a lawyer. If you don't want to violate sanctions against Iran, don't trade with Iran.
Julian Ku, a professor at Hofstra University Law School, wrote on Twitter that the move was justifiable. “US law prohibits exports of certain US-origin technologies to certain countries,” he said. “When Huawei pays to license certain US tech, it promises not to export to certain countries like Iran. So it is not unreasonable for the US to punish Huawei for flouting this US law.”
The only (legal) way to get the product out of the country is via an export license. The terms of that license say under what conditions said product can be removed from the country. Those terms include not selling the product to Iran. If you violate those terms you break the law, regardless of whether you own the thing you are selling.