Motorola Files to Intervene to Back FCC in Hikvision’s Petition for Review

Motorola Solutions filed for leave to intervene as of right in support of the FCC in Hikvision USA’s petition to review the commission’s Nov. 25 order barring the authorization of network equipment considered a threat to U.S. national security, said its motion Wednesday (docket 23-1032) in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Hikvision has no objections to the motion, the FCC consents to it and DOJ takes no position, said Motorola.

Hikvision’s Feb. 13 petition asserts it was “aggrieved” by the order. It seeks review on the grounds the order exceeds the FCC’s jurisdiction and statutory authority and violates the Constitution's equal protection and bill of attainder clauses, said the petition. Hikvision also alleges the order violates the Communications Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, was arbitrary and capricious, and wasn’t supported by substantial evidence, it said.

Motorola supports the order's changes to the FCC's equipment authorization rules, said its motion. The modified rules “will protect the public from equipment Congress has deemed to pose a significant national security threat,” it said. Motorola has a “direct and substantial interest” in Hikvision’s petition for review, because it “deploys and advances” the communications networks the order is designed to protect, it said.

Motorola “experienced firsthand” the harms caused by equipment producers on the covered list, said the motion. The current list includes Dahua, Hikvision, Huawei, Hytera and ZTE. The conduct of one such producer was “so egregious that it resulted in a multi-million dollar civil-jury verdict,” it said. There also was the criminal indictment of the producer and several of its employees, it said.

A grand jury returned indictments in May 2021 listing 22 counts of trade secret theft against Hytera and seven of its engineers who developed digital mobile radios for Motorola in Malaysia beginning in 2004 (see 2301260060). The engineers quit Motorola in 2008 and 2009 to work for Hytera in Shenzhen, and DOJ alleges they took Motorola’s DMR trade secrets with them.

In light of the order of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidating similar proceedings in the D.C. Circuit Appeals Court, Motorola asks that it be deemed an intervenor in any proceeding that's consolidated in the future with Hikvision’s petition for review, said the motion. Motorola also asks the court to order that intervenor brief be due a week after the FCC’s answering brief, “including any subsequent extensions of that date,” it said.