Seeking to address national security concerns, Sprint Nextel and SoftBank,
its Japanese suitor, are expected to enter an agreement with American law
enforcement officials that will restrict the combined company’s ability to pick
suppliers for its telecommunications equipment and systems, government officials
said on Thursday.
The agreement would allow national security officials to monitor changes to
the company’s system of routers, servers and switches, among other equipment and
processes, the officials said. It would also let them keep a close watch on the
extent to which Sprint and SoftBank use equipment from Chinese manufacturers,
particularly Huawei Technologies. The government officials spoke about the
possible agreement on the condition of anonymity because negotiations are
continuing.
While common to most technology investments in the United States by foreign
companies, such agreements have come into sharper focus recently because of
accusations by United States government officials of espionage by foreign
countries.
SoftBank and Sprint have already assured members of Congress that they will
not integrate equipment made by Huawei into Sprint’s United States systems and
will replace Huawei equipment in Clearwire’s network. Clearwire is a discount
cellphone firm Sprint is seeking to buy.
In meetings here on March 14, Masayoshi Son, the chairman and chief
executive of SoftBank; Daniel Hesse, chief executive of Sprint; and Erik Prusch,
chief executive of Clearwire, sought to reassure United States officials that
the merged company would take the steps necessary to ensure that its networks
would not endanger United States communications networks.
SoftBank, one of Japan’s biggest cellphone companies, is offering to buy
majority control of Sprint for $20.1 billion.
Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the
House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on Thursday that he also
met this month with the company executives, who promised him that they would not
use equipment from Huawei.
“I expect them to make the same assurances before any approval of the deal”
by national security officials, Mr. Rogers said. “I am pleased with their
mitigation plans but will continue to look for opportunities to improve the
government’s existing authorities to thoroughly review all the national security
aspects of proposed transactions.”
A recent report by the intelligence committee identified Huawei and the ZTE
Corporation, another Chinese equipment provider, as possible security risks. The
report cited the companies’ potential ties to Chinese intelligence or military
services.
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission, whose approval of
the merger is needed to allow the transfer of wireless-phone licenses, the
Communications Workers of America said that Huawei and ZTE were “helping to
build SoftBank’s next-generation 4G wireless network in Japan” and that Huawei
also helped build wireless networks for Clearwire.
But in their own F.C.C. filing, SoftBank and Sprint called the union’s
concerns “misplaced.” The companies noted that national security reviews were
already being conducted by Team Telecom, an interagency group that includes the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Homeland Security, Justice and Defense
Departments.
Tadashi Iida, a senior SoftBank network executive, said recently that the
company and its subsidiaries did not “use any equipment manufactured by Huawei
Technologies Co. or its affiliates in their core network infrastructure,”
according to an affidavit attached to the document.
In another, related filing, Sprint similarly dismissed the concerns. “Not
only is there no evidence of any national security threat that might arise from
the proposed transaction, but the expert authorities on national security issues
— in particular the agencies that work together in Team Telecom — already are
engaged with Sprint and SoftBank on these questions,” it said.
Also studying the potential consequences of the transaction is a national
security unit within the Treasury Department that reviews foreign acquisitions
of American businesses: the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United
States. The interest of government officials in monitoring Chinese manufacturers
around the Sprint deal was reported on Thursday by The Wall Street Journal.
Officials at the Treasury and Justice Departments declined to comment, as
did spokesmen for the F.C.C. and Sprint.
Roland Sladek, a spokesman for Huawei, said, “Huawei is a company that
meets the highest standards of network security, is a trusted vendor to 45 of
the world’s top 50 network operators and is an active investor and employer in
the U.S.”
It will not be easy for SoftBank and Sprint to avoid all equipment made by
Huawei, because it is second in size only to Ericsson of Sweden. American
manufacturers of telecommunications equipment have been struggling to remain
competitive in the fast-changing industry.
Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting from New York and David
Barboza from Shanghai.
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