China’s ZTE stocks surge after five-year probation

Shanghai, China, Mar 23 (EFE).- The shares of Chinese technology company ZTE soared at the Hong Kong and Shenzhen stock exchanges on Wednesday after a court in the United States ruled to allow the firm to end a five-year probation for breaching sanctions on Iran.

After briefly halting trading for a few hours before the announcement, ZTE shares had surged 31.1 percent after 1:30 pm at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and 9.99 percent in Shenzhen, very close to the 10 percent daily price variation limit.

In a statement on Wednesday, the company said that a US court had confirmed that the term of the company’s probation will end as scheduled on Mar. 22, US time.

Last week, the company was summoned to the courtroom in connection with an alleged conspiracy to commit visa fraud, which ultimately did not impact the terms of the probation period.

“The company is committed to building a world-class compliance enterprise, making compliance the cornerstone of its strategic development and the bottom line of operations, complying with the applicable laws and regulations of the countries in which it operates, and building a comprehensive compliance system,” ZTE said.

The telecommunications equipment giant also expressed “full confidence in the effective operation and continuous improvement of the compliance management system.”

In 2017, it agreed to pay $1.192 billion to the US government for violating a ban on exports to Iran between 2010 and 2016 despite promising the US authorities in 2013 to stop those operations.

ZTE was also subject to an additional $300 million in penalties if it violated the terms of the agreement.

However, since then, the company has run into more trouble with Washington, which went so far as to order a total ban on the company buying American components, which was lifted after the Chinese giant paid a $1 billion penalty and agreed to a court-appointed monitor to certify that ZTE did not violate the agreement again. EFE

vec/pd/lds