With the intelligence services of numerous European countries now investigating the activities of Huawei in their telecom sectors, the city of Prague has cancelled its relationship with the legal firm HSP & Partners. The Czech news server Aktualne.cz and Czech Radio warned that the head of the firm worked closely with Huawei, allegedly concluding a contract in 2016 worth CZK 350,000 per month to drum up new business for the Chinese telecom giant. Huawei concluded a deal with the city’s transport company in 2017 to run a pilot project to offer wi-fi Internet connections in certain metro stations. Prague’s mayor Zdeněk Hřib said the city would investigate whether the law firm had acted for both the city and for Huawei. “If that’s the case, it would be an unprecedented conflict of interests.” Aktualne.cz claims that HSP & Partners had also done work for Czech Railways and other state firms connected with railway communications.
