Cisco has confirmed that is has ended all sales agreements with ZTE, reportedly in response to an internal investigation into whether the Chinese firm was selling American hardware to Iran in defiance of sanctions. According to Reuters, an investigation by Cisco determined that its hardware was being shipped to Iran illegally …

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Monday 8th October 2012 19:05 GMT nuked

Correction

Yablon has been placed on ~~administrative leave~~ 'suicide' watch.

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1. Monday 8th October 2012 22:42 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Either they are true American Red Necks or they have received a call from the Washington Administration.
  
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  1. Tuesday 9th October 2012 03:22 GMT solidsoup
    
    Rednecks or phone call
    
    Does it have to be one or the other? It's likely more banal. Large US companies that sell to Uncle Sam in the billions know where their bread is buttered.The action was preemptive. It's very unlikely that Cisco was in any way complicit, but who wants to risk an investigation and the resulting political fallout and the potential impact on gubermint contracts?
    
    As to ZTE, what a bunch of muppets. If they had an eye on the American market, it is height of stupidity to deal with Iran over some paltry 130 mil. This actually makes this whole ZTE/Huawei US market push more interesting. The only way it makes sense for ZTE to deal with Iran, much less fraudulently resell gear of its US partner is if knew it would not be in the US market. I wonder if it's just a pretense to starting a trade war. Having transitioned a significant portion of their economy to internal consumption, China may think they have less to lose than US. Or maybe they're just testing the waters - just like they are around Senkaku.
    
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2. Monday 8th October 2012 22:44 GMT LarsG
  
  Don't worry
  
  Send them all to the UK, our Government likes to sell things off to foreign owned firms. In fact I don't even thing we own anything anymore.
  
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Monday 8th October 2012 19:47 GMT Mark C Casey

So, what can the US do?

Appears to me ZTE are in deep doo-doo.

Apart from the usual fine of x million dollars, can ZTE get their products banned from the US market etc? I mean, don't the Americans usually have something of a dim view of people and companies who go sanction busting?

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1. Monday 8th October 2012 20:15 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: So, what can the US do?
  
  Basically, the US can not just ban the sale of ZTE equipment in the US. They can ban US companies from dealing with ZTE in any way, anywhere in the world.
  
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Monday 8th October 2012 21:33 GMT Magani

"build a $131 surveillance system that..."

What are they using? A rack of Raspberry Pis?

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Monday 8th October 2012 21:54 GMT Rob Dobs

$131 - is this for tin cans and string?

Surely a typo, but is it billion or million

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Monday 8th October 2012 23:55 GMT JaitcH

According to an FBI affidavit, ...

Ashley Yablon, general counsel of ZTE USA, said he saw senior ZTE executives ...

Since when do people accept FBI anything on face value other than prosecutors and judges?

No doubt Ashley is line for USA alien status and after 5 years, and manufacturing more tails, he will get a new passport.

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Tuesday 9th October 2012 03:28 GMT Anonymous Coward

So here is ZTE trying to break into the US market and they said this to a congressional panel:

""The committee’s central question has been: would ZTE grant China’s government access to ZTE telecom infrastructure equipment for a cyber attack?" he explained. "Let me answer emphatically: no! China’s government has never made such a request. We expect the Chinese government never to make such a request of ZTE. If such a request were made, ZTE would be bound by US law.""

So ZTE said they would be bound by US law but when push came to shove, US law didn't trump what ZTE viewed as a conflict elsewhere. So what is it ZTE, going to follow US law or not? You can't have it both ways. Maybe a court needs to demand the documents get turned over and when the US ZTE executives say no, toss them in jail until the documents are turned over. The ZTE executives have two options at that point.

1) Comply and face the consequences.

2) Don't comply and end-up facing similar consequences.

Do they really think ZTE will back them? Nope, ZTE will go running back to China and have China protect them; US executives will be sacrificed in the process.

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