A Swedish court on Tuesday rejected a plea from the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which challenged the ban on its equipment in the Swedish tender for its 5G launch.
The Administrative Court in Stockholm decided that the decision of the Swedish telecommunications authority, PTS, to ban the use of equipment from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE in a new Swedish 5G telecommunications network in October last year – a move that irritated Beijing – was legal.
Equipment already installed must also be removed by January 1, 2025.
“Sweden’s security is an important reason and the administrative court has considered that only the security police and the military together have a complete picture when it comes to the security situation and the threats against Sweden,” said judge Ulrika Melin in a statement.
Huawei condemned the decision, but did not say if it would appeal.
“Of course, we note that there has been no evidence that Huawei has made any mistake that is used as a basis for this ruling, it is based solely on an assumption,” Kenneth Fredriksen, the company’s vice president for Central, Eastern Europe and the Nordics, told AFP.
Huawei will now evaluate the decision and “see what kind of measures we will take to protect our rights”, Fredriksen added.
After the United Kingdom in the summer of 2020, Sweden became the second country in Europe and the first in the EU to explicitly ban Huawei from almost all network infrastructure needed to operate its 5G network.
Beijing had warned that PTS’s decision could have “consequences” for the Scandinavian country’s companies in China, which caused the Swedish telecom giant and Huawei competitor Ericsson to worry about retaliation.
“We will continue to be available to have constructive dialogues with Swedish authorities to see if we can find pragmatic ways to take care of security and at the same time keep an open and fair market as Sweden has always been,” said Fredriksen.
Source: sn.dk