(Bloomberg) -- Huawei Technologies Co. Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou has joined Carlos Ghosn in the 1% legal club.

Those are the odds that the Chinese executive will win her bid to avoid extradition to the U.S., similar to the chances of acquittal for the auto titan-turned-fugitive in Japan. While Ghosn fled Japan in a big black box for Lebanon, Meng squares up to begin extradition hearings in a Vancouver court on Monday, 13 months after she was arrested on a U.S. handover request.

The hearings offer her first shot -- however slim -- at release as a Canadian judge considers whether the case meets the crucial test of double criminality: would her alleged crime have also been a crime in Canada? If not, she could be discharged, according to Canada’s extradition rules.

“There’d be nothing holding her -- bail restrictions, house arrest, all of that would be eliminated,“ said Michael Klein, a Vancouver lawyer who worked alongside Meng’s lawyers in a 2004 extradition case. “Just like if you’re acquitted in a criminal case, the Crown may appeal, but that person’s a free person.”

Meng, the eldest daughter of billionaire Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, has become the highest profile target of a broader U.S. effort to contain China and its largest technology company, which Washington sees as a national security threat. The U.S. accuses her of fraud, saying she lied to HSBC Holdings Plc to trick it into conducting transactions in breach of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Meng, who turns 48 next month, is charged with bank and wire fraud, which carry a maximum term of 20 years in prison on conviction.

“In most extradition cases, double criminality is an easy piece of analysis,” says Brock Martland, a Vancouver-based criminal lawyer.

In Meng’s case, it’s not, which may help nudge her into the 1% of defendants in Canada who have historically beaten extradition orders to the U.S.

Her defense has argued that the U.S. case is, in reality, a sanctions-violations complaint that it’s sought to “dress up” as fraud to make it easier to extradite her. Had Meng’s alleged conduct taken place in Canada, the transactions by HSBC wouldn’t have violated any Canadian sanctions, they say. Canada’s federal prosecutors counter the underlying offense is fraud because she lied to HSBC, causing them to miscalculate Huawei’s risk as a creditor and conduct transactions it otherwise wouldn’t have.

“In essence, this is a case of U.S. sanction enforcement masquerading as Canadian fraud,” Meng’s defense said in documents released Friday. If it were only about fraud, the U.S. would have no legitimate reason to go after Meng because “the U.S. is not actively policing the world for foreign nationals who mislead foreign banks to get loans or other financial services.”

Hong Kong Teahouse

Another potential sticking point is that Meng’s alleged misconduct didn’t take place in the U.S. or Canada -- it rests heavily on a 2013 meeting at a Hong Kong teahouse between Meng and an HSBC banker.

“Canadian fraud laws do not have an extraterritorial reach,” said Ravi Hira, a Vancouver-based lawyer and former special prosecutor. “If you commit a fraud in Hong Kong, I can’t just prosecute you in Canada.”

While the double-criminality hearings are scheduled for four days, the ruling would likely come much later -- possibly in months.

Prisoner in Vancouver: Huawei CFO Awaits Fate in Splendor

Being trapped in the middle of a trade war has brought the luxury of time. Before her arrest, Meng traveled so frequently for the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker that she’d gone through at least seven passports in a decade. These days, she passes her time oil painting and pursuing an online doctorate. Phone calls with her father have gone from once a year to every few days.

“If a busy life has eaten away at my time, then hardship has in turn drawn it back out,” Meng wrote in a poignant letter to her supporters last month on the one-year anniversary of her arrest. “It was never my intention to be stuck here so long.”

Ghosn Escape

Meng would find it harder to pull a Ghosn. She’s under 24-hour surveillance by at least two guards at her C$13 million ($10 million) mansion. Her whereabouts are recorded continuously by a GPS tracker on her left ankle. While she’s allowed to roam a roughly 100-square-mile patch of Vancouver during the day accompanied by security, any violation -- including tampering with the device or venturing anywhere near the airport -- would automatically alert police. She’s posted bail of C$10 million, of which C$3 million came from a group of guarantors, some of whom pledged their homes as collateral. Fleeing would cost them all.