Lawyers representing a Chinese professor accused of helping to steal intellectual property for the Chinese telecom giant Huawei told a Brooklyn federal judge Thursday that they want to get conflict-of-interest questions about their fees resolved as quickly as possible.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Solomon filed a letter this week claiming that the defendant's Thompson & Knight and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati attorneys are being paid by a U.S. subsidiary of "Company 1," which has been identified in multiple media reports as Huawei.

Bo Mao, who was arrested in Texas in August, is accused of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a conspiracy that allegedly involved Huawei and its subsidiary, according to prosecutors.

While third-party payments for legal counsel are typically reviewed in court, Solomon wrote that this Curcio review is particularly necessary because Mao's alleged association with the companies is a key fact of the government's case.

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly appointed Garden City attorney John Wallenstein as Curcio counsel for Mao and scheduled the hearing for Dec. 3, though Mao's current attorneys offered to appear as early as next week.

The lawyers, including Michael Sommer of Wilson Sonsini and Richard Roper of Thompson & Knight, said they want to get the issue resolved so they can move forward with discovery in the case.

Sommer said they have not yet seen a copy of the "relatedness letter," which explained why the case is connected to another matter in the Eastern District. Details of that connection have not been made publicly available, and Solomon said in court that the relatedness letter contains grand jury material.

The other case is related to the Curcio inquiry, Donnelly said, because a defendant in that case is paying Mao's legal bills. Donnelly has a case against Huawei on her docket, though she did not say whether that's the case she was referring to.

Donnelly also brought up her own potential conflict of interest in this case, explaining that Sommer and her brother were roommates in college. She invited either side to bring up their concerns about that.

"My feelings, believe me, will not be hurt if I don't have this case," she said with a chuckle.

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