ZTE looks to have been thrown a lifeline by the U.S. Government, with a deal reached to allow the company to restart operations. ZTE will have to provide security guarantees, change its management and board, and pay an enormous $US1.3bn fine, and in exchange, it will regain vital access to U.S. company products and software licences allowing the smartphone business to continue operation.
The deal was seemingly confirmed by U.S. President Donald Trump in the above terms. It’s understood that the company will be required to install U.S. compliance officers within its operations, and change its management team – presumably (or ostensibly) to prevent a reoccurrence of past misdeeds.
None of this should be read as a newfound trust of Chinese companies by U.S. lawmakers or agencies; senators, representatives and others have publicly voiced their concerns about the U.S. “backing down” on the action taken against ZTE, referring to it as capitulation to the Chinese.
Politics to one side, it’s good news for ZTE which will soon regain access to the IP and componentry needed to keep its smartphone business (and other operations) alive. We expect to see comment from ZTE in the not too distant future, but for now, nothing has been made public.
Ah good, so that would mean (I guess?) Telstra will start selling ZTE’s again? I need to get a 4g flip phone for a pensioner and they had one at a reasonable price.