The Congress in October 2021 passed a bill titled the Secure Equipment Act, which directs the FCC to adopt within one year from the date the bill becomes law a rule that would prevent companies on the Covered List from securing authorizations for future applications. The act was signed into law on November 11th, 2021.
The law also states that the FCC may not, under this proceeding, revoke existing authorizations. Therefore, our existing products on the market retain their authorization, and all Dahua distributors and customers will be able to rely upon the existing authorizations that their products already have in place.
The FCC has one year as of November 11th, 2021 to adopt final rules on future authorizations. It is possible that the FCC may, in the interim, issue a public notice seeking comments on how the law impacts its proposed rule-making process (as it has done on occasion in the past), which could delay the timeline.
At any point in that process, the Secure Equipment Act itself could be subject to legal challenge.
Notably, Dahua’s comments to the FCC as well as other comments raise substantive questions about the constitutionality of denying a business the right to secure an FCC authorization without any due process or evidentiary proceeding. Should such a challenge take place, it could be additional months or years before the issue is resolved by the courts.