ZTE, the Chinese smartphone maker, says it can’t fix a urinal in the men’s room of one of its offices because it is afraid doing so will run afoul of the blanket ban imposed on the company by US regulators.
The urinal is made by American Standard, the company said.
The Commerce Department on April 16 slapped a ban on ZTE buying any US parts after the company was found to have violated an agreement not to ship equipment to Iran or North Korea.
The company said it didn’t know if the ban — primarily aimed at parts for smartphones — extended to any piece of equipment from the US.
So to draw attention to its predicament caused by the ban — which, left unlifted, could bankrupt the company — it placed a note above the broken urinal drawing attention to the issue.
“We are not allowed to purchase US components or accessories,” a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be named as the information is private, told the South China Morning Post.
ZTE did not respond to a request for comment.
President Trump has promised to walk back the ZTE ban — and helped broker a deal to reopen purchases of US products by ZTE. That deal involves ZTE paying a $1 billion fine plus placing $400 million in an escrow account to cover any future infraction.
The paperwork to set up the escrow account is in the final stages, the SCMP reported.