A U.S. government panel is poised to recommend that the president unravel an acquisition made by China's Huawei Technologies Co., after the Pentagon sought review of the deal, people familiar with the matter said.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is reviewing the telecommunications-equipment maker's $2 million deal last May to buy the assets of 3Leaf Systems, a Bay Area developer of technology that lets collections of server computers work together as a more powerful machine.

The interagency committee reviews cross-border deals with national-security implications and makes recommendations to the president. A decision by CFIUS on the Huawei deal is due Monday. The transaction still could be approved, and the president is free to disregard a recommendation by the committee.

CFIUS doesn't release information about a company under review, but a person familiar with the CFIUS process said a president has vetoed a foreign transaction only two or three times. Typically, a company will withdraw its application if it gets an indication the committee will recommend against a deal.

The White House referred questions to the Treasury, and the Defense Department had no immediate comment on Huawei. Both typically refer questions on CFIUS matters to the Treasury, which declined to comment.

It was unclear what remedy the government could require of Huawei. The company hired 15 3Leaf employees, owns several former 3Leaf patents and purchased the start-up's servers out of bankruptcy.

"Huawei has been engaged in the CFIUS process related to 3Leaf in good faith for a number of months now and looks forward to the process concluding," said William Plummer, vice president of government affairs for Huawei.

The decision in the Huawei deal comes as President Barack Obama has been trying to defuse rising political and economic tensions with China. Huawei has struggled to gain a foothold in North America, thwarted on other deals by government officials who have said China's military could use Huawei equipment to disrupt or intercept U.S. communications.

The Chinese government considers Huawei a national champion in telecom, one of several industries in which the China aims to be globally competitive. Huawei is the world's second-largest maker of telecom equipment, after Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson, with estimated revenue last year of $28 billion, according to Huawei.

Companies generally are expected to request a CFIUS review before completing potentially sensitive cross-border deals. Huawei didn't seek review for the 3Leaf purchase in advance, however, saying it only bought intellectual property and hired staff but didn't acquire the Bay Area start-up outright.

But Pentagon officials disagreed that the deal shouldn't trigger review and took the unusual step of asking the company late last year to retroactively seek clearance, people familiar with the matter said.

Huawei then set the review process in motion, and the 45-day window that CFIUS has to review the deal closes Monday.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, five lawmakers wrote Thursday that Huawei poses a national-security risk and that attempts by the telecommunications-gear maker to acquire U.S. technology should receive close scrutiny. The Treasury and Commerce departments are among the agencies represented on CFIUS.

"The 3Leaf acquisition appears certain to generate transfer to China by Huawei of advanced U.S. computing technology," the letter said. It was signed by Sens. Jim Webb (D., Va.), Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.) and Richard Burr (R., N.C.) and Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) and Sue Myrick (R., N.C.).

The lawmakers said Huawei has close ties to China's army and financial support from the Chinese government. The company's founder, Ren Zhengfei, was a former commander in China's People's Liberation Army.

Mr. Plummer, of Huawei, said the letter "rehashes unfounded innuendo in a seeming attempt to undermine the integrity of the CFIUS process."

"As Huawei has stated in the past, the company is 100% employee-owned and has no ties with any government, nor with the PLA," he said.