Huawei sues to stop sale of some Motorola assets to Nokia Siemens Networks

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is asking a U.S. court to block the sale of some of Motorola Inc.’s wireless networks business to Nokia Siemens Networks, charging that the $1.2 billion proposed sale of the business could transfer Huawei’s intellectual property around GSM and UMTS technologies to NSN.
“Since 2000, Huawei and Motorola have had a cooperative relationship in the radio access network and core network businesses, where Motorola has resold Huawei wireless network products to customers under the Motorola name,” according to a statement from Huawei. “During this period, Motorola was provided with products and confidential Huawei IP developed by Huawei’s team of more than 10,000 engineers. Since the July 2010 announcement by NSN of its purchase of Motorola’s wireless network business, Huawei has tried to ensure that Motorola does not transfer this confidential information to NSN. Motorola, however, has not responded with assurances that it will prevent disclosure of that information to NSN.”
The lawsuit could further delay NSN’s acquisition of the Motorola business. The deal was set to close by the end of 2010 but has been delayed as it awaited regulatory approvals from Chinese authorities and antitrust clearance from the United States, European Union, Brazil, Japan, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan and Turkey. If approved by all authorities, NSN said it expects 7,500 employees to transfer from Motorola to NSN, including research and development sites in the United States, China and India.
Interestingly, Motorola in July accused Huawei of alleged theft of trade secrets in a case that dates back to 2008. Motorola originally sued Chinese vendor Lemko Corp. for alleged theft of trade secrets and later included Huawei in the lawsuit, charging that the two companies have a “secret relationship” and that Lemko and Huawei both have products that are based on Motorola’s SC300 microcell base station transceiver.