Huawei lawyer poses conflict: US

NEW YORK: Huawei Technologies lawyer James Cole’s prior work at the US Department of Justice created conflicts of interest that should disqualify him from defending the Chinese company in a case of alleged bank fraud and sanctions violations, US prosecutors said in a filing on Friday.
Last week, the prosecutors filed a motion to disqualify Cole, who served as deputy attorney general, the number two official at the Justice Department, between 2011 and 2015. But the motion was sealed and classified, and prosecutors did not make public the reasons behind the move.
“There is a ‘substantial risk’ that Cole could use ‘confidential factual information’ obtained while serving as DAG to ‘materially advance’ Huawei’s current defence strategy,” the prosecutors said, according to a redacted copy of the US motion filed on Friday in US District Court in Brooklyn, New York.
Cole was not immediately available for comment.
But in a statement Huawei said the US wants to strip the company of counsel of its choice while concealing the facts on why.
“The Justice Department’s motion to disqualify Jim Cole makes a mockery of the adversaries process,” the statement said. – Reuters