A Bureau of Industry and Security official last week confirmed the agency sent letters to specific companies restricting their ability to export certain artificial intelligence-related chips to China, and said more restrictions may be coming. In the agency’s first public comments on the matter, Thea Kendler, BIS’s assistant secretary for export administration, said the agency hopes the letters help inform industry about the types of exports the agency is scrutinizing.
The Bureau of Industry and Security updated its restricted aircraft list by adding three Iranian-owned and operated planes for violating U.S. export controls, the agency said in an emailed news release. BIS said the planes -- which are owned by Mahan Air, Qeshm Fars Air and Iran Air and are the first Iranian aircraft added to the list -- illegally provided flight services to Russia. Certain activities involving the planes, including maintenance and repair, are now subject to restrictions outlined in General Prohibition 10 of the Export Administration Regulations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is on pace to detain almost as many exports to Russia this year as the agency detained in 2021 for the entire world, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. In the six months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said, the U.S. has detained nearly 240 shipments to Russia worth more than $93 million.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week announced a host of measures to expand its export restrictions against Russia and Belarus, including an expansion of its Russian industry sector sanctions to add new export controls on lower-level items. The agency also expanded its military and military intelligence end-user controls, applied its Russian-Belarusian MEU foreign direct product rule to additional entities, added additional dollar value exclusion thresholds for certain luxury goods exports and more.
A new Commerce Department rule aimed at making it easier for certain U.S. technologies to be shared at standards-setting bodies will “undermine” U.S. efforts to protect those sensitive technologies from being acquired by China, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said. Although the rule, issued last week (see 2209080038), sought to allow the participation of U.S. companies in international standards bodies that have members on the Entity List, McCaul said it also undermines U.S. export restrictions. “Companies that are entity-listed are threats to national security, and we need real safeguards to ensure sensitive technology is not transferred to these bad actors,” said McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
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After several years of delays, Commerce Department officials said industry may soon see progress on the agency’s long-awaited routed export rule. Although the rule is unlikely to be published this year, officials this week said they are hoping to prioritize the effort in the coming months, which could include major changes to the process around assigning filing responsibilities to forwarders and address information sharing among parties in routed export transactions (see 2006020049).
Two senior Bureau of Industry and Security officials are in Singapore this week to discuss emerging technology export controls with their government counterparts in Asia and Europe and members of industry. BIS said Thea Kendler, the agency’s assistant secretary for export administration, and Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top enforcement official, will discuss the multilateral response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and will speak about export control laws and regulations at several events organized alongside a range of trading partners. In addition, Kendler will speak at the inaugural Women in Strategic Trade Conference Sept. 14, which “provides an opportunity to collaborate internationally on increased opportunities for women in export controls.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments on potential export controls over certain instruments for the automated synthesis of peptides, the agency said in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking this week. The agency, which has been drafting the ANPRM since at least June (see 2206270007 and 2208290019), said automated peptide synthesizers may warrant export restrictions as foundational or emerging technologies because of their potential impact on American national security. Comments are due Oct. 28.
New multilateral export controls on certain electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) software won’t have an immediate effect on semiconductor companies and are unlikely to cause wide concern in the short term, industry officials said. The controls, announced by the Bureau of Industry and Security Aug. 15 (see 2208120038) and effective in October, seek to restrict an emerging technology that may not be commercially available for at least two years, although officials say it remains unclear what exactly the restrictions will cover.