Dji Loses Lawsuit Over Classification As Chinese Military Company

A national judge has rejected drone shaper DJI’s efforts to get disconnected a Department of Defense database of Chinese subject companies.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman ruled Friday that nan DoD had provided “substantial evidence” that DJI contributes “to nan Chinese defense business base.”

Pointing to nan usage of modified DJI drones successful nan conflict betwixt Russia and Ukraine, Friedman wrote, “Whether aliases not DJI’s policies prohibit subject usage is irrelevant. That does not alteration nan truth that DJI’s exertion has some important theoretical and existent subject application.”

At nan aforesaid time, Judge Friedman rejected immoderate of nan DoD’s different rationales for nan listing.

Other authorities agencies, including nan Department of Commerce and nan Treasury Department, placed DJI connected akin lists earlier it was added to nan DoD database successful 2022.

When DJI filed nan lawsuit past year, nan institution said it was “not owned aliases controlled by nan Chinese military” and that “the DoD itself acknowledges that DJI makes user and commercialized drones, not subject drones.”

The suit besides said nan institution had “suffered ongoing financial and reputational harm, including mislaid business” arsenic a consequence of nan listing.

TechCrunch has reached retired to DJI for comment. The institution told Reuters that it’s considering its ineligible options and said Judge Friedman’s determination was “based connected a azygous rationale that applies to galore companies that person ne'er been listed.”
DJI faces different ineligible hurdles successful nan United States, including a imaginable prohibition connected sales starting successful December unless a nationalist information agency determines that its drones do not “pose an unacceptable consequence to nan nationalist information of nan United States.”