Chinese vendor Huawei has won an injunction in a US District Court that may delay the sale of Motorola’s network business to European vendor Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN).
On Monday, the company announced it had filed an injunction against Motorola for…
Chinese vendor Huawei has won an injunction in a US District Court that may delay the sale of Motorola’s network business to European vendor Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN).
On Monday, the company announced it had filed an injunction against Motorola for intellectual property infringement.
According to Huawei’s statement, it had enjoyed a co-operative relationship with Motorola since 2000 in the radio access and network and core network businesses. In this period, Motorola had been “provided with products and confidential Huawei IP [Intellectual Property]”.
Huawei said that it had tried to ensure that Motorola does not give this confidential information to NSN, but it had received what it saw as adequate assurance from Motorola that this would not happen.
The US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ordered a temporary restraining order on Monday so that Motorola did not disclose any of Huawei’s confidential information to NSN.
This could prove a substantial obstacle to the Motorola-NSN deal.
Huawei reportedly made a higher bid than NSN for the Motorola assets, but failed to win the contract because of national security fears in the US regarding its perceived links to the Chinese military.
NSN’s acquisition of the assets has also been slowed because of the delay in receiving regulatory approval from the Chinese authorities. The deal had received antitrust approval by other regulators around the world, including the EU and US.
