Chinese tech giant Huawei is challenging a U.S. law that limits its sales of telecom equipment in the U.S. on security grounds as the company steps up efforts to preserve its access to global markets for next-generation communications.
Huawei Technologies Ltd.’s lawsuit, announced Thursday, asks a U.S. court to reject as unconstitutional a military-spending provision that bars the U.S. government and its contractors from using Huawei equipment.
It comes as the biggest global maker of network equipment fights a U.S. campaign to persuade allies to shun Huawei. That threatens to block access to major markets as phone carriers prepare to invest billions of dollars in next-generation cellular networks, known as 5G.
The complaint filed in Plano, Texas, the headquarters of Huawei’s U.S. operations, says the law is an unconstitutional “bill of attainder,” or a measure that singles out a specific entity for punishment. It says that denies the company due process and amounts to a “death penalty.”
The American Embassy in Beijing said it had no comment on pending litigation.
Steven Schwinn, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, said the lawsuit is likely to be dismissed by a judge. He said the “bill of attainder” claim, or punishment without due process, would be hard to prove.
But Schwinn said the lawsuit is one of Huawei’s only remaining options, short of trying to get Congress to reverse the ban.
“This strikes me as a last-ditch effort to do something,” he said.
U.S. long-term mortgage rates rise this week
U.S. long-term mortgage rates rose modestly this week, but they remain slightly lower than they were a year ago.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average rate on the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage increased to 4.41 percent from at 4.35 percent during the prior week. The average was 4.46 percent a year ago, but rates climbed for much of 2018 and peaked at nearly 5 percent in early November.
The average rate this week for 15-year, fixed-rate loans rose to 3.83 percent from 3.77 percent during the prior week
Mortgage rates often move in sync with the interest paid on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes. Rising rates in 2018 suppressed home sales, but the lower levels in recent months point to the possibility of sales gains this year.
Tennessee unemployment remains below U.S. rate
Tennessee’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 3.3 percent in January remained unchanged from the end of 2018 and well below the national jobless rate of 4 percent.
The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development said Thursday that Tennessee employers added 61,200 jobs over the past year, including 8,300 from December to January.
Tennessee has now had a statewide unemployment rate of 3.3 percent for the last four consecutive months.
“Tennessee continues to experience a strong economy with record low unemployment,” Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said in an announcement of the monthly jobless figures.
Nationally, January’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 4.0 percent, up 0.1 of a percentage point from December.
Despite the improved job market, the average weekly pay for Tennessee manufacturing workers in January fell by $26.56 from December due to a slight drop in both the average pay and average workweek at the start of 2019. Tennessee’s average factory wage of $19.89 an hour in January was more than 9 percent below the U.S. average of $21.86 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.