Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice announce a series of criminal charges against Chinese smartphone maker Huawei. The company allegedly stole trade secrets, committed bank fraud and wire fraud, and obstructed justice. Now, The Information reveals the company also attempted to steal Apple trade secrets.
The report indicates a Huawei engineer leading that company’s smartwatch project pushed a supplier for the Apple Watch’s heart rate sensor for information about the technology. The representative met with the company under the pretense of discussing a manufacturing contract. However, it soon became apparent the real reason for the meeting.
The Huawei engineer attended the supplier meeting with four Huawei researchers in tow. The Huawei team spent the next hour and a half pressing the supplier for details about the Apple Watch, the executive said.
“They were trying their luck, but we wouldn’t tell them anything,” the executive said. After that, Huawei went silent.
This is just one small incident in a “pattern of dubious tactics” by the Chinese electronics company in an attempt to gain technology from its rivals. The company allegedly targeted Apple’s China-based suppliers. However, a Huawei representative says the company has done nothing wrong: “In conducting research and development, Huawei employees must search and use publicly available information and respect third-party intellectual property per our business-conduct guidelines.”
The U.S. Justice Department says the company actively offers bonuses to employees that steal trade secrets. The sizes of the bonuses depend on the confidential value of the information they gather.
In addition to the Huawei engineer pressing the Apple Watch supplier for details, the Chinese company copied a component used in the MacBook Pro. The “MateBook Pro” used a connector that was identical to the one used in the 2016 MacBook Pro, allowing the device’s hinge to be thinner while attaching the display to the logic board.
Huawei reportedly approached numerous suppliers and provided them with schematics just like Apple’s, but most recognized the part and refused to make it for Huawei. The company told The Information that it requires suppliers to uphold a high standard of ethics and that it doesn’t seek or have access to its competitor’s confidential information. Eventually, Huawei found a willing supplier and the connector was built into the MateBook Pro.
The Information report provides numerous other examples of Huawei and its attempt to steal trade secrets from Apple. A former Apple employee that was interviewed for a job at the Chinese company found that the interviewers were more interested in Apple’s upcoming product than they were in doing any hiring. “It was clear they were more interested in trying to learn about Apple than they were in hiring me,” the former employee said.
The Chinese electronics firm bad moves go beyond Apple, as the company’s chief financial offices Meng Wanzhou is accused of bank and wire fraud, destroying documents, lying to the government, and more. The firm is also accused of stealing trade secrets from T-Mobile related to robotic technology used to test smartphone durability.