NJ Company Agrees to Pay $400,000 for Illicit Technical Data Exports
The State Department ordered Barrington, N.J.-based Bright Lights to pay a $400,000 civil penalty to settle 11 charges related to illicit exports of technical drawings and a failure to maintain and provide required records, in alleged violation of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), according to State documents posted Sept. 12. Prior to Feb. 19, 2013, Bright Lights’ business practice was to create “redacted” versions of technical drawings for products it wanted to outsource, according to State’s proposed charging letter. The company prepared the drawings by “removing any export control language” and transferring the rest of the drawings, in whole or in part, onto a company-labeled and formatted page. After complete, Bright Lights would send the modified page for manufacture or post it online to solicit quotations, State said.
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Bright Lights didn’t seek licenses or other authorization from State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls for exports of the technical data, the charging letter says. In a July 15, 2013, submission to the U.S. government, the company said the failure was a “good faith misunderstanding of the ITAR requirements” by the firm’s chief engineer at the time, according to State.
A Bright Lights audit conducted from April 15, 2008, to April 15, 2013, found more than 270 instances in which the company sourced or sought to source “potentially ITAR-controlled” military parts from foreign vendors, the charging letter says. In most cases, Bright Lights provided “potentially controlled technical data” to foreign manufacturers, but for some orders, the company posted data to a manufacturer sourcing website to be accessed by foreign persons, State said. The audit uncovered four unauthorized exports to Chinese manufacturers, and one unauthorized export to an Indian manufacturer, involving U.S. Munitions List categories II(k) (certain technical data for guns and armament), IV(i) (certain technical data for launch vehicles, guided missiles, ballistic missiles, rockets, torpedoes, bombs, and mines), and VII(h) (certain technical data related to ground vehicles).