Former HSBC executive testifies in Huawei's US criminal trial

SharpPost Editorial Team | First published: 1 October 2026 | Last updated: 2 October 2026

This article has been updated to include Alan Thomas’s testimony on 30 September, Huawei’s cross-examination and the prosecution’s redirect examination, with revised attribution of the evidence.

Alan Thomas, HSBC’s former deputy head of global banking for Asia-Pacific, testified on 30 September in the US government’s criminal case against Huawei in the Eastern District of New York. Prosecutors questioned him about assurances Meng Wanzhou gave at a 2013 meeting in Hong Kong. Huawei’s lawyers turned to the bank’s internal records to challenge how much HSBC already knew.

According to Law360’s courtroom report, Thomas told jurors he believed Huawei’s Iranian business was aboveboard after Meng’s assurances. The caption to a Reuters courtroom sketch records Huawei lawyer David Bitkower cross-examining him, with Judge Ann Donnelly presiding.

What did HSBC already know?

Prosecutors questioned Thomas about Meng’s account of Huawei’s Iranian operations and its relationship with Skycom. They sought to establish that her statements influenced HSBC’s assessment of the customer and its sanctions exposure. His recollection of the meeting forms part of that case.

The defence tests the bank’s prior knowledge

Huawei’s lawyers sought to show that HSBC had information about Huawei, Skycom and related entities before Meng’s presentation, and that the meeting was not the bank’s only source for assessing the risk.

According to a live courtroom account by Inner City Press reporter Matthew Russell Lee, Thomas acknowledged that he asked no questions, took no notes and wrote no report of the meeting. When asked about HSBC’s policies, he also said the bank could serve companies with limited business in sanctioned countries and that he believed Huawei complied with those policies.

The defence showed internal HSBC records to challenge the bank’s knowledge of Skycom and Canicula, the entity that acquired Skycom’s shares. Thomas confirmed that one record listed both entities. But when counsel asked whether another HSBC employee knew Huawei controlled Canicula, prosecutors objected on hearsay grounds and the judge sustained the objection. Thomas subsequently said he did not know what that employee knew.

In another exchange recorded by Lee, Thomas confirmed that a bank record shown by the defence concerned a transfer of approximately €1.5 million from Skycom Europe to Skycom Iran. He said Huawei Technologies was listed as the applicant and referred to the same telephone number. The defence used the record to question HSBC’s understanding of the connections between the entities. Its significance and the extent of the bank’s knowledge remain disputed.

HSBC’s commercial relationship with Huawei

Thomas also acknowledged under cross-examination that HSBC participated in a syndicated financing arrangement for Huawei of approximately $1.5 billion and earned about $15 million in fees. He said maintaining the Huawei relationship was part of his job. The defence sought to use these ties to challenge the context of HSBC’s risk decisions and the weight of his testimony.

Prosecutors draw a narrower distinction on redirect

On redirect examination, prosecutors asked whether a document contained anything indicating that Huawei was continuing to conduct Iranian business. Thomas answered no. That response concerned the document put to him, rather than everything HSBC might have known.

The prosecution’s theory distinguishes awareness that Huawei operated in Iran from knowledge of its alleged continuing control of Skycom and the sanctions exposure associated with clearing related dollar payments through the US financial system. Prosecutors seek to establish that Meng withheld information material to the bank’s risk decisions. Huawei argues that HSBC’s prior knowledge undermines that account.

The Hong Kong meeting and Meng’s 2021 agreement

Between December 2012 and January 2013, Reuters and other media reported on Skycom’s Iranian business and its links to Huawei. According to the statement of facts Meng signed in 2021, financial institutions providing international banking services to Huawei then sought explanations. Huawei requested a meeting with a senior executive at one of the banks.

That meeting took place in Hong Kong on 22 August 2013. Meng gave a PowerPoint presentation in Chinese, with an interpreter translating into English. She described Skycom as Huawei’s business partner in Iran, said they had a normal commercial relationship and said Huawei had sold its Skycom shares. The US documents call the bank “Financial Institution 1”. HSBC and Thomas were identified in the UK High Court’s 2021 judgment on Meng’s application for banking records.

The statement of facts Meng later acknowledged as accurate says Huawei subsidiary Hua Ying transferred its Skycom shares to Canicula in 2007, but Canicula was also controlled by Huawei. From 2010 to 2014, Huawei made Skycom’s major business decisions in Iran, and Skycom’s local manager was a Huawei employee.

The statement contrasts those ownership and control arrangements with Meng’s account at the meeting. It says she knew Huawei still controlled Skycom and describes that information as material to the bank. Prosecutors allege the bank was not given accurate information needed to assess the customer and the risks of the transactions.

The statement also records about $100 million in US-dollar transactions Skycom conducted through Financial Institution 1 between 2010 and 2014, cleared through the United States. It says at least some supported business in Iran that violated US law. These included about 80 payments totalling at least $7.5 million from Skycom’s Asian accounts to a British staffing company for engineers working on Iranian projects.

Meng signed a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Justice Department in September 2021 without pleading guilty to the criminal charges. She signed and confirmed the attached statement of facts as true and accurate to the best of her information and belief. Paragraph 7 also barred her, and lawyers or other representatives authorised to speak for her, from making statements contradicting it.

Prosecutors agreed to seek dismissal of the charges against Meng if she fulfilled her obligations during the deferral period. Her individual charges were dismissed in 2022, while the case against Huawei continued.

Huawei objected to the use of statements from Meng’s personal agreement in the company’s trial, arguing that her statements could not deprive it of its own right to remain silent. Reuters reported on 17 June that Judge Ann Donnelly rejected that argument and allowed prosecutors to use the statement. The judge cited Meng’s position as CFO, the fact that the statement concerned her conduct in that role, and Huawei’s adoption of her statements.

Paragraph 6 of the 2021 agreement addressed how the statement could be used if prosecutors resumed proceedings against Meng personally. This year’s separate ruling allows it to be used against Huawei. It concerns admissibility, not a verdict on the company’s guilt. The statement’s significance for corporate criminal responsibility, the bank’s knowledge and the use of evidence remains part of the current proceedings.

The dispute over knowledge and materiality

HSBC had compliance obligations of its own at the time of the 2013 meeting. In a December 2012 announcement, it confirmed settlements with US authorities over anti-money-laundering and sanctions compliance. It committed to cooperating with regulators and law enforcement, strengthening internal controls and accepting an independent monitor for five years.

What the bank knew is also central to Huawei’s defence. Reuters’ account of opening statements on 9 September reported its lawyers’ argument that the bank knew Huawei operated in Iran and still sought its business. The defence also said there was no evidence Huawei knew the dollar clearing would breach US sanctions, and that it could have used other currencies or processed transactions outside the United States. Huawei has pleaded not guilty.

Meng advanced more specific arguments during the earlier Canadian extradition proceedings. The UK High Court’s 2021 judgment recounted her position that knowledge of Huawei’s relationship with Skycom was not confined to junior HSBC staff. She also challenged the alleged link between the bank’s decision to continue serving Huawei and its processing of dollar receipts for the British staffing company. These were Meng’s submissions, not factual findings by the UK court.

The records she sought in Britain included Thomas’s internal correspondence about the Hong Kong meeting, HSBC risk committee material and Skycom transaction-monitoring records. The High Court dismissed the application in 2021, finding, among other reasons, that the legislation invoked did not apply to those foreign proceedings and the requested documents exceeded the statutory scope of bankers’ records. That decision addressed access to documents, not whether HSBC had been deceived.

Huawei’s US case also includes trade-secret, money-laundering and obstruction-of-justice charges, extending beyond the 2013 meeting. In the bank-fraud case, prosecutors seek to establish that Meng withheld information material to HSBC’s risk decisions and argue that the bank relied on her account in continuing to serve Huawei. The defence points to HSBC’s prior knowledge to challenge the prosecution’s account of the statements’ significance and effect.

Thomas’s testimony leaves jurors with more than the question of what Meng said in Hong Kong in 2013. They must also consider what HSBC knew beforehand and whether any new or withheld information was significant enough to affect its risk decisions. Those questions bear directly on the prosecution’s bank-fraud theory. The trial remains underway, and the jury has not returned a verdict.