Meng Wanzhou extradition proceeding hailed as "unique" case
Credit to Author: Keith Fraser| Date: Fri, 24 Jan 2020 01:34:16 +0000
One of Meng Wanzhou’s lawyers called her extradition hearing a unique case Thursday in closing remarks to a four-day court proceeding.
“This is the kind of case that tests our system,” said Richard Peck, a prominent criminal lawyer in Vancouver told Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the B.C. Supreme Court. “It’s a difficult case. It’s not for us so much a matter of us standing here and saying we want justice to be done. We say right needs to be done.”
Peck’s comments came as lawyers for the Huawei executive and the federal Crown, who are acting on behalf of U.S. authorities seeking Meng’s extradition on fraud charges, finished submissions on whether the Crown had met the test for double criminality. Under that test, the Crown needs to prove that the offence for which Meng is being sought is a crime in both Canada and the United States.
Meng’s lawyers argued that the Crown had not met the test and that the judge should discharge her.
Meng was arrested at the Vancouver airport in 2018.
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, after a short morning session that ended the fourth day of trial in her extradition case, leaves British Columbia Supreme Court with her security detail on January 23, 2020 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The allegation is that in 2013 Meng committed fraud by lying to HSBC bank officials who were asking about links between Huawei and Skycom, a former subsidiary that was allegedly doing business in violation of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. She is accused of falsely telling the bank that Huawei no longer had links to Skycom, in order to get HSBC to continue its multi-million dollar financial dealings with the world’s largest telecommunications company.
The defence argued that the essence of the case was the U.S. sanctions against Iran. Because Canada no longer has sanctions against the Middle Eastern country, they said, there is no equivalent crime in this country and therefore double-criminality is not made out.
The Crown argued that the heart of the case was the alleged fraudulent conduct and not the sanctions.
Court heard that fraud in Canada requires the prosecution to prove two elements — that there was a dishonest act and that the dishonest act caused a loss or a risk of a loss.
The Crown argued that through her misrepresentation to HSBC, Meng caused the bank to continue to provide banking services to Huawei, thereby creating a risk of economic prejudice to HSBC.
Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, after a short morning session that ended the fourth day of trial in her extradition case, leaves British Columbia Supreme Court with her security detail on January 23, 2020 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The prosecution said that on the same day Meng met with an HSBC official in August 2013, Huawei announced a $1.5 billion, five-year loan from a syndication of international banks, with HSBC being the coordinator of the loan and one of the principal lenders. In 2014, Huawei entered negotiations to become involved in a further $700 million to $900 million credit facility from another syndication of banks including HSBC, the Crown alleges.
At the time HSBC had recently reached a deferred prosecution agreement involving dealings with a number of countries and faced both regulatory and reputational consequences from any dealings that ran afoul of the Iranian sanctions, according to the Crown.
Meng’s lawyers said that the fact that there are no Iranian sanctions in Canada means that there could be no loss or risk of loss as required to make a case for fraud.
They urged the judge not to consider any of the American sanctions law in the context of the legal argument.
The Crown argued that the sanctions law could be considered in a limited way and cited several previous extradition rulings to back up their submission.
The judge is expected to take several months before handing down her decision.
If she agrees with Meng, the Huawei executive will be discharged although the Crown could appeal.
If she sides with the Crown, the case moves to the next stage in June, where Meng will argue RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency engaged in an abuse of process during her arrest. A decision by the court on that could also be appealed, further lengthening the legal proceedings.
Meng remains out on $10 million bail.
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