Huawei, Option reach licensing pact, Option backs off anti-dumping complaint

Belgium-based USB maker Option is dropping its anti-dumping and anti-subsidy allegations against Huawei Technologies after the two companies reached a business agreement that includes Huawei licensing Option’s connection management software for $37.6 million, and buy its semiconductor business for $11.1 million.
Going forward, the companies are considering cooperating on a research and development center in Belgium and plan to cooperate on R&D projects that will support Europe’s Digital Agenda objectives, Option said in a news release.
Option had asked the European Commission to investigate whether Chinese telecom manufacturers Huawei and ZTE were able to bring cheap wireless wide area networking modems to market because they were subsidized by the Chinese government. The companies denied the complaint. Option now said it has asked the Beligan government and the EC to close the investigations.
Huawei is licensing Option’s connection manager software for a year for $37.6 million, and could extend the license for another 18 months for an additional $45.9 million. In addition, Huawei is picking up Option’s wholly owned M4S business, which the company has been trying to sell since January. M4S is developing next-generation RF chipsets that can be used in 4G devices. Option noted that M4S chipsets will have much better distribution under Huawei’s ownership.
“This collaboration between two innovative companies in the wireless technology industry is in the best interest of all stakeholders. The collaboration aims to improve our respective products and solutions and will offer long term benefits to our customers. The software license agreement is a big step forward in one of our key pillars of our strategy,” said Jan Callewaert, Option’s CEO.
“As we seek to expand our already significant R&D capacity in Europe, we recognize there are mutual benefits to gain from joint research and development,” said Tim Watkins, vice president for Western Europe, Huawei. “We are confident that this cooperation will allow each company to launch even more innovative mobile broadband products in the foreseeable future. Huawei will continue to invest in Europe by collaborating with more local partners and sharing our innovative telecommunications technology, thus supporting the further growth of the telecom industry in Europe.”