In a strange turn of events, FedEx is filing a lawsuit against the US administration over what is seemingly an unreasonable task of policing and monitor items being shipped to Huawei. The US courier service says that the on-going US ban on China and Huawei is causing it to scrutinise “millions of packages” that comes through its doors.
FedEx says that doing so is both legally and logistically impossible. Its stated in its lawsuit that it is a transportation company, and not a law enforcement agency. For context, some time after the US ban on China went into effect, Huawei was added on to the US government’s “Entity List”. Containing names of people and companies that it deemed to be a risk to national security.
FedEx came into the spotlight recently when – while attempting to enforce the US ban – a package heading for the US was returned to its sender in the UK, which was PCMag. The reason behind its return? The contents of the package was a Huawei P30 Pro smartphone.
After PCMag posted an article about the incident, FedEx made a public apology to the tech site, citing “operational error” as the cause of the return. Further, FedEx explained that it would publicly deliver all products made by Huawei to all addresses, except for the ones that are on the US blacklist. It was also a clear sign that the company wasn’t interested in earning the ire of the Chinese government.
Unfortunately for FedEx, the damage had already been done. Due to its error, the Chinese government is now asking FedEx for a full explanation over the issue, and has even accused the courier of having a vendetta against Huawei. Other reports also say that because of the incident, China is currently contemplating on putting FedEx on its own blacklist.
At the time of writing, The US Commerce Department said that it had yet to review the complaint, but was looking forward to defending its role in protecting US national security.
(Source: WSJ, Reuters, Market Watch // Image: WSJ via Reuters)
