The Bureau of Industry and Security has released the beta version of its new website as it looks to officially replace its current site, which officials have called “dated” (see 2310310059). The agency said the beta site is an “in-progress version that incorporates new tools to access and use BIS regulations” but results “from this beta site may be inaccurate or incomplete and should not be relied upon for compliance with the” Export Administration Regulations.
The U.S. will increasingly look to apply new export licensing requirements to entire countries rather than to specific companies, which could lead to a shift away from the Entity List, Commerce Secretary Gina Riamondo said. She also said the agency will continue targeting new artificial intelligence-related products developed by American semiconductor companies, such as Nvidia, that fall just below U.S. export control thresholds.
End-use certificates can be a good way to mitigate some sanctions and export control risk, but “it doesn't necessarily make the risk completely disappear,” said Jan Dunin-Wasowicz, a Hughes Hubbard trade lawyer. Dunin-Wasowicz cautioned companies about relying solely on end-use and end-user statements when conducting due diligence, adding that companies can take other compliance steps to vet a transaction, especially because some customers are willing to lie about a product's end-use.
The Bureau of Industry and Security’s recent increase in enforcement of anti-boycott regulations signals the agency will “continue to be active in this space,” and companies may want to review their compliance programs, Arnold & Porter said in a Nov. 28 client advisory. “It may be time for U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries -- especially those conducting business in or involving the Middle East region -- to establish, review, and/or update their antiboycott compliance programs,” the firm said.
The Biden administration should investigate all Chinese lidar technology companies to determine whether they should be placed on the Entity List or made subject to U.S. investment restrictions, the House Select Committee on China said in a letter this week. The lawmakers said lidar, or light detection and ranging, is being used in autonomous systems and robotics but isn’t subject to export controls, potentially allowing a loophole for Chinese companies to acquire U.S. technologies for use in lidar systems that can aid the country’s military.
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent a final rule for interagency review that will make tweaks, clarifications and corrections to its recent chip export control updates, which were released last month and placed new license requirements on additional chips and chipmaking tools, among other changes (see 2310170055). BIS sent the correction rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Nov. 27. BIS officials have said the agency is looking to clarify several issues with the rule that exporters have raised over the past month and correct other provisions that “may not have fully hit the mark we intended” (see 2311060067 and 2311160044).
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The Bureau of Industry and Security suspended the export privileges of Samantha Coronado, an inmate at a Texas federal medical center who was convicted June 23, 2022, of smuggling 730 rounds of “CBC .50 caliber ammunition” from the U.S. to Mexico. Coronado was sentenced to 46 months of “confinement,” three years of supervised release and a $100 assessment, and BIS revoked her export privileges for seven years from the conviction date.
The Commerce Department quietly stopped approving new licenses for firearms exports to three Latin American countries months before publicly announcing a broader suspension in October for dozens of other nations.
The Commerce and Treasury departments earlier this month co-hosted a virtual “exchange” with small to mid-sized financial institutions, law enforcement and government agencies to discuss Russian attempts to evade export controls, the agencies announced Nov. 21. The exchange included officials from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and “exemplified the ongoing U.S. Government effort to further constrain and prevent Russia from accessing the international financial system and conduct economic activity to fund its invasion of Ukraine,” Treasury said. The effort came about a week after BIS and FinCEN issued another set of export control evasion red flags for financial services firms along with a new key term that banks and others can include in their suspicious activity reports (see 2311060055).