Huawei heir apparent prepares for life after three years of Canada

By Moira Warburton and Sarah Berman

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – After being stuck in Canada for nearly three years, largely confined to her multi-million-dollar house in Vancouver, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou on Friday was set to return home to China https://www.reuters.com/technology/huawei-cfo-meng-appear-court-expected-reach-agreement-with-us-source-2021-09-24.

Like many top Chinese executives, Meng has remained an enigmatic figure. The 49-year-old CFO of Huawei Technologies had been widely tipped to one day take the helm of the tech giant her father founded.

Seeming to thwart those expectations, Meng was detained in December 2018 at Vancouver International Airport on a U.S. warrant charging her with bank fraud for allegedly misleading HSBC Holdings (NYSE:) about Huawei’s business dealings in Iran.

After Meng reached an agreement with U.S. prosecutors to resolve the case on Friday, a Canadian judge scrapped her extradition hearing.

Later, the Canadian government released a statement confirming that she was free to leave the country. She was due to fly to China later on Friday, according to a source familiar with the matter.

“Over the past three years my life has been turned upside down. It was a disruptive time for me as a mother, as a wife,” Meng told reporters and supporters on the steps outside the Vancouver courtroom after the hearing.

“But I believe every cloud has a silver lining. It really was an invaluable experience in my life. I will never forget all the good wishes I received from people around the world,” she said.

Meng has usually remained expressionless in public appearances since her arrest, but on Friday morning she smiled broadly as she left her home to attend a court hearing conducted virtually between Vancouver and Brooklyn, New York.

The detention of Meng, who takes her family name from her mother and has also used the English first names “Cathy” and “Sabrina,” threw the spotlight on Huawei at a time of heightened global concerns over tech security.

In dozens of court appearances, her lawyers portrayed her as an innocent bystander caught up in a trade war between the United States and China.

Shortly after her arrest, China detained two Canadians, sentencing one this month to 11 years in prison, in a move Canadians assailed as retaliation. Beijing has denied any connection between the arrests and Meng’s case.

Meng was under loose house arrest in Vancouver. Under her bail terms, she was been permitted to roam the city during the day and return at night to her house in Shaughnessy, an upscale neighborhood in the Pacific coastal city. She was monitored 24/7 by private security, which she paid for as part of her bail deal.

Her husband, Liu Xiaozong, and the son and daughter they have together have been…