DJI has filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Defense for including it on the Pentagon’s list that designated it as a “Chinese military company.” In its filing shared by The Verge, the company said it is challenging the designation because it is “not owned or controlled by the Chinese military.” It described itself as “the largest privately owned seller of consumer and commercial drones,” which are mostly used by first responders, fire and police departments, businesses, and hobbyists.
The company claimed that because the Pentagon officially declared it a threat to national security, it has suffered “continuous financial and reputational harm.” It also said it has lost business from both US and internal customers, who terminated contracts and refused to sign new ones, and it has been banned from signing contracts with several federal government agencies.
DJI reported that it tried to engage with the Department of Defense for more than 16 months and submitted a “comprehensive delisting petition” on July 27, 2023, to get the agency to remove its designation. However, the agency allegedly refused to engage in a meaningful way and explain its reasoning behind adding the company to the list.
On January 31, 2024, the DoD re-designated the company without any notice, DJI wrote in its complaint. DJI alleged that the DoD shared its full reasoning for its designation only after the agency informed it that it was “going to seek judicial relief.” The company claimed that the DoD’s reasoning was not sufficient to support its designation, that the agency confused people with common Chinese names and that it relied on “outdated alleged facts and tenuous connections.”
DJI is now asking the court to declare the DoD’s actions unconstitutional, calling the Pentagon’s designation and failure to remove it from the “Chinese military company” list a violation of the law and its due process rights. DJI has long been in the crosshairs of various US government agencies.
The Commerce Department added it to its Entity List in 2020, which barred US companies from supplying parts to it without a license. A year later, it was added to the Treasury Department’s list of “Chinese military-industrial complex companies” for its alleged involvement in the surveillance of Uighur Muslim people in China.
And just days ago, DJI confirmed that its latest consumer drone was detained at the border by US Customs, which cited the Uighur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The drone-maker denied that it has manufacturing facilities in Xinjiang, a region linked to forced Uighur labor.