Huawei on Tuesday released a statement denying allegations that it spied on Pakistan and stole trade secrets, saying there is no evidence it ever implanted any "backdoor" in its products.
The statement comes after a US-based company — Business Efficiency Solutions (BES) LLC — sued Huawei in a California federal court for allegedly stealing its trade secrets following their work together on a project for the Punjab government.
In its complaint, the company also accused the Chinese tech giant of using its technology to create a "backdoor" that allowed it to collect sensitive data "important to Pakistan's national security".
According to the statement released by the tech company on Tuesday, Huawei Pakistan had filed for arbitration in an Islamabad court against BES over "ongoing contract disputes" in September 2018.
The arbitration process is still ongoing, the company said, adding that it would not comment on ongoing legal cases.
"Huawei respects the intellectual property of others, and there is no evidence Huawei ever implanted any backdoor in our products," the statement said.
The allegations in the suit stem from a long-running legal dispute between the companies, it said.
"Huawei hired BES to provide software and other services to help it win the rights to build Lahore’s Safe City project in 2016.
The relationship soured, and Huawei sued BES in Pakistan, where BES also sued Huawei. Those proceedings are ongoing. BES is no longer operational and has no revenue," the statement said.
The statement also said that Huawei had acknowledged setting up a separate version of the Lahore project in China in comments to the Wall Street Journal; however, it was a test version that was physically isolated from the customer’s live network.
"This made it impossible for Huawei to extract data from the customer’s live network," the statement said.
The customer ID referred to in this case was the Punjab Safe Cities Authority.
The allegations
According to the complaint filed by BES, Huawei subcontracted with BES in 2016 for its $150 million bid to develop software for a government program providing new technology for police and law enforcement in Lahore.
BES said it created software for the project that collects data from government agencies, controls access to buildings, monitors social media, and manages drones, among other things.
The eight software systems BES developed for the project included proprietary code, designs, diagrams, and other information that are "valuable trade secrets at the core of BES's business," the complaint said.
Huawei officials allegedly demanded that BES send this information to the company in China for testing, and BES said it agreed to the demand but terminated its authorization to use the technology after Huawei revoked its access to the testing laboratory.
The complaint said Huawei has yet to return any of the confidential software design tools or uninstall the software, as BES said it had agreed to.