Huawei Technologies Co awaits United States President Barack Obama's decision on whether it could use patents purchased from US-based 3Leaf Systems last year, which raised national security concerns in the US, China's biggest telecommunications equipment maker said Tuesday.
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which vets deals on national security grounds, recommended Huawei last week to sell the 3Leaf assets, which the Shenzhen-based company bought for US$2 million in May.
Huawei, however, rejected the committee's recommendation and left the final decision to Obama on whether to block the deal within 15 days, said Bill Plummer, Huawei's Washington-based vice president of external affairs.
"To withdraw would have an adverse impact on our brand and reputation. We want to see the process through. We welcome the presidential review," Bloomberg News quoted Plummer as saying yesterday.
Members of the US Congress wrote at least two letters last year expressing concerns about Huawei's activities, followed by a third letter last week, which specifically raised concerns about the 3Leaf purchase.
The purchase of 3Leaf, a cloud computing firm, was part of Huawei's strategy to expand globally. Cloud computing is an Internet-based resource sharing technology.
In 2008, Huawei wanted to bid for US-based 3Com but gave it up on security concerns.
In 2010, a group of US lawmakers raised national security concerns about the Chinese company's bid to supply mobile telecom equipment to Sprint Nextel Corp.
