Huawei leaves US deal's fate to Obama
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China's Huawei has refused to back down after a US Congress panel voiced security concerns about the tech giant's acquisition of US computer technology, shunting the issue to President Barack Obama, a report said Tuesday.
Huawei said it would suffer "significant damage" to its brand and its reputation if it was forced to go back on the $2 million deal last May in which it acquired computer firm 3Leaf Systems, the Financial Times reported.
The report cited Huawei as saying that the decision not to back down means Obama himself must decide whether the firm must reverse the deal, the newspaper said, calling it a "highly unusual move."
AFP was not immediately able to reach Huawei officials who would comment.
The report cited experts as saying that Huawei's decision to resist the advice of the US Committee on Foreign Investment, which vets deals on security grounds, was "virtually unprecedented" and in most cases when companies are quietly advised to walk away from such a deal, they have done so.
The move puts Obama in a difficult position after last month's state visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to the United States. US officials have also been lobbying Beijing to give US tech firms greater market access. But lawyers said Obama, who has 15 days to make a decision, was likely to uphold the decision by the Committee on Foreign Investment, the report said.
Huawei's consumer products include smart phones that run on Google's Android platform and technology to connect laptops to the Internet using 3G networks.
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