Seagate to pay $300m settlement over $1.1bn hard disk drive sales to Huawei

Seagate sold the drives to Huawei between August 2020 and September 2021 despite an August 2020 rule that restricted sales of certain foreign items made with US technology to the company. Huawei was placed on the Entity List, a US trade blacklist, in 2019 to reduce the sale of US goods to the company amid national security and foreign policy concerns.

The penalty represents the latest in a string of actions by Washington to keep sophisticated technology from China that may support its military, enable human rights abuses or otherwise threaten US security.

The other two primary suppliers of hard drives ceased shipments to Huawei after the new rule took effect in 2020, the department said. Though they were not identified, Western Digital and Toshiba Corp were the other two, the US Senate commerce committee said in a 2021 report on Seagate.

The companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Axelrod said the administrative penalty was the largest in the history of the agency not tied to a criminal case.