Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Commerce Department on Friday, challenging whether telecommunications equipment it sent from China to the United States and then back is covered by Export Administration Regulations, according to a court filing. 

In the lawsuit, the Chinese firm said that it shipped telecommunications equipment from China, including a computer server and Ethernet switch, to a testing laboratory in California in July 2017. After the testing was done, the equipment was shipped back to China, but the hardware was then seized in Alaska while officials checked to see whether it needed an export license. 

Huawei insisted the equipment entails no license in that it did not fall under any controlled category and it had provided information about the equipment as requested, which indicated at the time of shipment no license was needed under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. Besides, the seized hardware was not made in the U.S. and was being returned to the country it came from.

"The equipment, to the best of HT USA's knowledge, remains in a bureaucratic limbo in an Alaskan warehouse," Huawei said in its lawsuit.

Huawei believes the Commerce Department took "unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed agency action" on the seized equipment.

The company is at the current stage asking for the hardware in the controversial whirlpool to be either released for shipment, or for the U.S. side to announce that it was shipped illegally. 

The Commerce Department did not respond immediately to a Reuters request seeking comment.

The U.S. Commerce Department on May 15 added Huawei to the "Entity List" that bans the company and its 70 affiliates from buying technology and components from American firms without U.S. government approval.

Huawei's founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said that the company was fully prepared for the U.S. restrictions and would be "fine" even if U.S. chipmakers would not sell chips to the company.

(With input from Reuters)