HSBC denies Chinese media report it ‘framed' Huawei: report

People’s Daily accused the lender of lying about the tech giant.

HSBC has denied Chinese media reports that it “framed” Huawei Technologies and played a role in the arrest of the company’s chief financial officer (CFO) Meng Wanzhou, reports Reuters.

In a statement posted on the bank’s Chinese WeChat messaging service account, the lender said that it did not participate in the decision of the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Huawei.

The statement comes after Chinese government-run People’s Daily newspaper published a report accusing HSBC of being an accomplice of the US of lying about Huawei, resulting in the arrest of Meng.

Meng was arrested in December 2018 at Vancouver International Airport after being accused by US authorities of bank fraud for misleading HSBC about Huawei’s relationship with a company operating in Iran, putting HSBC at risk of fines and penalties for breaking US sanctions on Tehran.

“The context of the development of the Huawei incident clearly shows that the U.S. investigation of Huawei was not triggered by HSBC,” the bank said in its WeChat post, without directly referring to the People’s Daily report.

Here’s more from Reuters.