The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Oct. 17 rejected both the government’s and law firm Husch Blackwell’s motions for judgment in a Freedom of Information Act dispute involving the Entity List. It gave the Commerce Department time to provide adequate justifications for its decisions to withhold certain information but said the ones it already provided weren’t enough (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 24-2733.
Steven Emme, former chief strategy officer for the Bureau of Industry and Security, has joined Akin as an international trade partner, the firm announced. Emme worked multiple stints at the Commerce Department since 2007, including as BIS chief strategy officer beginning in 2023, before leaving earlier this year. His practice will focus on international trade and national security, including issues related to U.S. export control and sanctions regulations.
Chinese semiconductor company Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. accused the Bureau of Industry and Security of illegally withholding documents related to its placement on the Entity List, adding that the government acted on "inaccurate" information from YMTC competitors when it imposed stringent export license requirements on the company in 2022. The firm also questioned whether the End-User Review Committee, the interagency group that makes decisions on adding or removing companies from the Entity List, followed proper protocol when it voted to put YMTC on the list.
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Anne Fisher, a former official with the Bureau of Industry and Security's chief counsel office, has joined Hogan Lovells' international trade and investment practice, the firm said. Fisher, who left BIS in July after first joining in October 2022, will advise on U.S. export control laws, economic sanctions, customs, foreign investment and other issues. She was at Hogan Lovells before going to BIS.
Importer Prysmian Cables and Systems again said Aug. 15 that the plain language of the executive order establishing Section 232 exclusion requests doesn’t allow the Commerce Department to base denials on national security considerations (Prysmian Cables and Systems USA v. United States, CIT # 24-00101).
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on Aug. 7 largely kept alive a case from importer Eteros Technologies USA and its CEO Aaron McKellar against CBP for allegedly retaliating against the company for winning a customs case at the Court of International Trade. Judge Kymberly Evanson said the court has jurisdiction to review the revocation of McKellar's NEXUS membership, which lets pre-screened travelers accelerate their entrance into the U.S., and that the case isn't mooted by CBP's vacatur of an order banning McKellar from entering the U.S. for five years (Eteros Technologies USA v. United States, W.D. Wash. # 2:25-00181).
The U.S. last week arrested and accused two Chinese nationals of using a California-based company to illegally export tens of millions of dollars' worth of advanced AI semiconductors to China, including by first transshipping the chips through Malaysia and Singapore.
California-based electronic design automation firm Cadence will pay more than $140 million in combined civil fines, criminal penalties and forfeitures after the U.S. said it violated export controls against China. The company pleaded guilty to illegally exporting EDA hardware, software and semiconductor design intellectual property technology to Chinese entities, including a university and company on the Entity List.
Information collected under the Export Control Reform Act is “presumptively withheld” from Freedom of Information Act requests, the U.S. said July 14 in a case involving the disclosure of documents related to an addition to the Entity List (Husch Blackwell v. Department of Commerce, D.D.C. # 1:24-02733).