Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
A new rule change by the Bureau of Industry and Security will subject a broader range of chemical mixtures to declaration requirements, including for export or import. The revisions, outlined in a final rule that takes effect July 3, lowers the concentration threshold level at which mixtures containing certain controlled chemicals are subject to the declaration requirements. The change brings the U.S. Chemical Weapons Convention Regulations “into further alignment” with guidelines adopted by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in 2009, which established the lower concentration threshold limit for certain chemicals.
New potential U.S. export controls on a broader set of artificial intelligence-related chips could have massive impacts on the chip industry and American chipmaker Nvidia, said Colette Kress, Nvidia’s chief financial officer. Kress, speaking about reports that the Biden administration could tighten existing chip export restrictions as it prepares to finalize its China chip export control rule from October, said new license requirements could deal permanent damage to American chip industry sales in China.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week removed a Russian tour company from a temporary denial order imposed against Nordwind Airlines, a Russian airline that BIS said illegally operates aircraft on flights into and out of the country.
The Bureau of Industry and Security announced the launch of a formal process to coordinate with certain allies on export enforcement efforts, an effort the agency’s Office of Export Enforcement has been working on for months. BIS said the “partnership” -- agreed to with the fellow Five Eyes partners Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. during a meeting in Canada this week -- will leverage each country’s resources to expand enforcement “capacity” and better “prevent and deter evasion of export controls,” BIS said.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The U.S. should launch a new office within the Bureau of Industry and Security to measure the intended and unintended impacts of export controls on global supply chains before they are implemented, technology policy experts said in a new Atlantic Council report this week. This could help the U.S. better calibrate its trade restrictions so they don’t alienate allies and hurt American competitiveness, the report said, and could ultimately better convince trade partners to join in on the controls.
A Republican-backed bill in the Senate could require the Bureau of Industry and Security to adopt a license review policy of presumption of denial for controlled exports to “any end user” in China or Russia and to notify Congress before approving a license to either country. After notifying Congress, lawmakers would be able to block BIS from granting the license, which will help “create additional safeguards to ensure sensitive technology does not flow to our adversaries,” the bill’s introducers’ press release said.
Many companies are grappling with how best to comply with the Commerce Department’s foreign direct product rule, “one of the key areas” still “unaddressed” by the agency’s regulations and guidance, said Kim Strosnider, a trade lawyer with Covington. She said Commerce’s compliance expectations for the FDP rule are rising despite due diligence challenges faced by industry, pointing to the agency’s record $300 million penalty against Seagate Technology in April (see 2305080029 and 2304190071).
The Bureau of Industry and Security is considering tweaking regulatory language that calls on exporters to conduct a five-year review of activities that preceded their voluntary self-disclosures. The change could make it so the language only applies to more serious disclosures, said the top BIS export enforcement official, Maththew Axelrod, and would represent another step in the agency’s effort to draw more BIS and industry resources toward addressing significant violations as opposed to minor or technical ones.