ZTE has exited five years of US court-imposed probation despite a last-minute allegation of involvement in visa fraud.
A Texas judge ruled Tuesday that the Chinese firm should be allowed to end its probation but he encouraged the government to pursue the visa case, Al Jazeera reported.
The decision drew a line under the decade-long saga of ZTE's sanctions-busting trades with North Korea and Iran and record-breaking penalties.
But the conclusion, with the company facing another criminal case, did not surprise Ashley Yablon, the former employee who blew the whistle on the firm a decade ago.
"I'm not surprised because they can't help themselves," he told Light Reading. "They don't look at these laws as we in the west look at these laws. They call them 'suggestions.'"
Death threats, FBI raids and clandestine meetings
Yablon, who was ZTE America's general counsel in 2010-2011, has just published a book on his experience titled Standing Up To China: How a Whistleblower Risked Everything for His Country.
His disclosures helped the feds successfully prosecute the Shenzhen-based vendor, who pleaded guilty in March 2017 and agreed to pay a US$1.19 billion fine – the highest financial penalty the US government has ever imposed.
But when it was found that instead of firing all the employees involved in the Iran transaction ZTE had retained most of them and paid them bonuses, the Commerce Department slapped it with another $1 billion fine, and compelled the vendor to replace its entire...
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