Huawei CFO loses bid for access to secret Canadian documents

A Canadian court rejected a bid by Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou for access to documents withheld from her by the Canadian government on national security grounds.

The government’s decision to restrict access to six documents involving Canada’s spy agency was warranted, and the information contained in them is “not relevant” to Meng’s allegations that her December 2018 arrest in Vancouver was conducted unlawfully, according to a written judgment by Federal Court Justice Catherine M. Kane released publicly Tuesday.

“The information does not provide the ‘missing pieces of the puzzle’ that Ms. Meng seeks,” Kane said in her ruling.

Meng is seeking to have a Canadian court dismiss a U.S. extradition request on alleged trade-sanctions violations, arguing that there was an abuse of process during her arrest. She accuses Canada of “coordinated state misconduct,” saying its police and border officials worked together in secret with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and its authorities questioned her for hours and obtained passwords to her electronic devices before formally charging her.

Meng had sought a court order that would have forced the government to provide further access to communications between the FBI and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service at the time. Kane refused that request aside from “the lifting of some redactions and the provision of replacement wording for other redactions.”

Separately, Meng is pursuing additional disclosures through the Supreme Court of British Columbia as well, which held closed-door hearings last week.