The US Department of Commerce (DOC) fined Seagate $300 million for supplying Huawei, a Chinese tech company, unauthorised hard drives.
According to reports, the Chinese computer firm “Huawei” purchased $1.1 billion worth of hard drives from the storage technology business “Seagate” unlawfully. The US Department of Commerce (DOC) assessed a punishment on Seagate for breaking export restrictions put in place in August 2020.

Various reports claim that between August 2020 and September 2021, Seagate sold these hard drives to Huawei for nearly $1.1 billion without taking into account the fact that the DOC has listed Huawei as an Entity due to a number of US national security concerns.

According to a statement made public by the DOC’s Bureau of Industry and Services (BIS), “of the three, only Seagate refused to stop sales and transactions involving Huawei,” despite the fact that “two other companies capable of making HDDs, indicated that they had ceased sales to Huawei.”

Western Digital and Toshiba are the other two businesses referred to as “capable of making HDD’s” in the statement.

The $300 million charge imposed on Seagate, according to the BIS’s statement, is more than double the revenue generated by the sale of hard drives to Huawei. Seagate also consented to a lengthy audit and a five-year suspended denial order in addition to paying a substantial fine.

When discussing its sales to Huawei, Seagate stated that because the hard discs sold to Huawei were manufactured abroad, their business practises were compliant with the trade sanctions.

According to Seagate CEO Dave Mosley, “We believed we complied with all applicable export control laws at the time, but we determined that settling this matter was the best course of action.”