The Bureau of Industry and Security this month updated its “Don’t Let This Happen To You” guidance, which includes summaries and case examples of past export control investigations. The 65-page document also includes an overview of the BIS Office of Export Enforcement, the agency’s various authorities and a section on BIS enforcement priorities, which specifically names China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
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The Bureau of Industry and Security is still reviewing export controls on facial recognition software, surveillance-related products and other goods controlled for crime-control reasons, but it may move forward on the rule soon, a Commerce Department official said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has received very few license applications and questions related to its cybersecurity export control rule since it took effect in March (see 2110200036 and 2201110025) but is open to issuing more guidance to industry if needed (see 2205050023), a Commerce Department official said during the BIS annual update conference last week.
The Bureau of Industry and Security plans to add more attorneys to its chief counsel's office to keep pace with its Russia-related export controls, a Commerce Department official said during the BIS annual update conference last week. The counsel has about 15 lawyers but expects to add more “in the coming months,” said the official, speaking on background as part of a conference policy for career staff. “It really has been unprecedented times over the past six months,” the official said, adding that the counsel’s office wants “to make sure that we can match” the rest of the agency “as the amount and intensity of work continues.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is using recently received funding to expand its U.S. field offices and send more officers overseas, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top enforcement official. Axelrod said BIS soon will launch a field office in Phoenix and has sent export control officers to the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki and the American Institute of Taiwan in Taipei. BIS also recently sent its first intelligence analyst abroad to work with the Canadian Border Services Agency.
The U.S. needs to build a new multilateral export control forum to “institutionalize” the licensing and enforcement coordination of the last several months, said Don Graves, the Commerce Department’s deputy secretary. Although Bureau of Industry and Security officials said they are unsure whether the cooperation will lead to a new, formal export control regime (see 2206290032), Graves was critical of the existing ones, saying the U.S. needs a more modern approach to respond to Russia and other global crises in the future.
The U.S. and its allies should be sharing more export control information to better align their licensing decisions, said Thea Kendler, the Bureau of Industry and Security's assistant secretary for export administration. Although the U.S. is already sharing some of that information through the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council to keep Russia from acquiring sensitive technologies and other items for its military, Kendler said more can be done.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has been receiving “a lot” of questions about what is considered a “major component” under the agency’s foreign direct product rule, a Commerce Department official said. Some exporters have asked BIS to issue a list of examples of major components for the purposes of the FDP rule, the official said, which restricts certain foreign-produced items when they are produced by a plant or by a “major component” of a plant that is a direct product of certain U.S. technology or software.
The Bureau of Industry and Security on June 30 announced several policy changes designed to strengthen its administrative enforcement tools and penalties. Under the changes, outlined at the agency’s annual update conference by Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top enforcement official, BIS will raise penalties for more serious violations; revise its policies surrounding its no-admit, no-deny settlements; begin offering settlement agreements that don’t include fines; and revise how the agency processes voluntary disclosures.