Munich . A team of developers at the Huawei research center in Munich has made serious allegations against the Chinese group in relation to “Welt am Sonntag”. As the newspaper reports, citing correspondence available to it, a manager in charge of the team is said to have commissioned the IT specialists in March 2019 to research important software from competitor Cisco and to recreate it in an unauthorized manner.
Accordingly, the order could have come directly from the Huawei headquarters in China. Team members said they resisted the contract and asked the legal department for clarification. However, this clarification did not take place. After the team refused to carry out the assignment, several of them faced the consequences. One employee's employment contract was terminated, another was demoted and a third, who worked as a freelancer, was not given a contract extension.
Huawei Germany rejected the allegations at the request of “Welt am Sonntag”. The company said the process had been checked internally. Neither external legal or contractual regulations nor internal guidelines were violated at any time. An infringement of intellectual property rights never took place and was never planned or intended. Huawei did not comment on the stated consequences for the employees concerned.
Fear of China's influence
Huawei is one of the world's largest telecommunications equipment suppliers and a leader in 5G technology. In numerous countries, including Germany, there are concerns that Huawei technology could be a gateway for Chinese espionage or sabotage. The USA and Great Britain have therefore excluded the company from setting up their 5G networks and are putting pressure on European countries to do the same.
The latter had recently caused Great Britain to rethink. The Minister for Culture and Media, Oliver Dowden, announced at the end of November that no new technology from the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei may be installed in British telecommunications networks from autumn 2021. Old technology from the group should therefore be removed from the networks by 2027.
In January, the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson decided that Huawei could participate in the expansion of the super-fast 5G cellular networks in Great Britain, subject to restrictions. In the summer it was said that it shouldn't be like that. According to the government, the reason for the move was not only security concerns, but also the consequences of the US sanctions against Huawei. (APA / AFP / red.)
