Media Statement Regarding The Wall Street Journal's Report on the CNEX Case

May 24, 2019 Shenzhen

• CNEX's accusations against Huawei are totally unsubstantiated. Huawei filed a lawsuit against CNEX and its founder in 2017, and these recent accusations are nothing more than an empty copycat claim.
• In 2017, Huawei filed a lawsuit against a former employee, YiRen "Ronnie" Huang, because he left the company with intellectual property that he stole from Huawei. At the time, he poached several Huawei employees and used Huawei assets to start his own company, CNEX—which Huawei also sued as a defendant in the litigation. Other former Huawei employees also stole confidential Huawei documents just before leaving the company to join CNEX. These actions constitute a serious violation of Huawei's intellectual property rights.
• In late 2018, after losing many key rulings, CNEX and Mr. Huang filed copycat counterclaims against Huawei.  The allegations refer to Xiamen University, which CNEX attorneys later attempted to tie to Huawei’s Rotating Chairman, Xu Zhijun. But the accusations are groundless, which is evidenced by the fact that the presiding judge has twice denied CNEX's attempts to drag Mr. Xu into the litigation. In addition, CNEX's legal team have such little faith in their claims concerning Xiamen University that they did not seek any documents or testimony from the university, its professors, or its personnel. Nevertheless, CNEX has taken every opportunity to cry foul to the media in a thinly veiled attempt to divert public attention and tarnish Huawei's reputation.  Seeking to capitalize on the ongoing trade war, CNEX repeatedly asks the press to refer to CNEX as an “American” company, but it fails to mention that approximately half of its personnel and research activities are in China.
• Huawei has resisted discussing this case to the media. We will continue pressing our claims through legal means, and we are confident that the facts will speak in Huawei's favor. They will prove our claims against CNEX and Mr. Huang, including his infringement of Huawei's intellectual property rights and breach of contract. In the end, we trust that the court's findings will vindicate Huawei from CNEX's misleading counterclaims.