BIS Continues to Ramp Up End-Use Validation
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) did the highest number of end-use checks last year that it has over the past five years, said Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement David Mills July 24 at the Update Conference on Export Controls. The 2012 figure totaled nearly 1,000 checks in 50 countries, including vital transshipment locations such as the United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.
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Spearheaded by BIS Export Control Officers (ECO), the end-use check program aims to mitigate proliferation and illicit diversion. BIS validates end-users that qualify to receive shipments under Export Administration Regulations (EAR). As the interagency effort to transfer dual-use items from the U.S. Munitions List (USML) to the Commerce Control List (CCL) continues, the validation of goods and end-user destinations increasingly plays a critical role, according to Mills. “Exporters should expect that documentation requests to support end-use checks for both USML and CCL items will become routine beginning in October,” he said.
The assistant secretary said the end-use program was supported by a joint State Department-Office of Enforcement Analysis (OEA) strategy. Mills also exhorted U.S. exporters to actively censor shipment destinations. Front companies are a common challenge the U.S. government and U.S. importers grapple with, according to Mills, saying terrorists and rogue states use such companies to obtain “innocuous” electronics and explosive material that potentially poses a threat to U.S. military personnel abroad. “The majority of our unfavorable end-use checks take place in transshipment destinations,” Mills claimed. “Therefore it is critical that you adequately screen your customers in these locations.”