US federal prosecutors opened an investigation into Huawei for alleged theft of trade secrets from business partners, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, as the country’s authorities continue to ramp pressure on the company.

The case is said to revolve around a number of innovations including handset testing technology used by Deutsche Telekom subsidiary T-Mobile US. According to the newspaper’s sources the probe is close to a conclusion.

In response to the WSJ, Huawei pointed to the fact it settled a dispute with T- Mobile related to trade secrets at a civil court case in 2017, where no malicious conduct was found by authorities.

Reports of the federal case, which attracted media attention globally, emerged hours after US politicians unveiled a bill designed to block Chinese telecoms and technology companies found in violation of export laws from buying US components.

Following the announcement of the bill, Reuters quoted China’s spokesperson at its foreign affairs ministry Hua Chunying describing the move as caused by hysteria, which intensified the situation.