The U.S. last week announced a host of new sanctions and export controls against Russia, targeting Russian defense and technology companies, Russian government officials and various suppliers for supporting the country's military. The measures include hundreds of new designations and 57 additions to the Entity List, most of which will be subject to certain foreign direct product rule restrictions.
The U.S. and its allies should modernize the way they approach export controls and reboot regimes that have so far failed to keep China from acquiring sensitive technologies, said Mark Hewitt, Lockheed Martin’s vice president for corporate strategy. Martin, speaking during a Sept. 27 defense industry conference hosted by IDEEA, said many current export regimes are outdated.
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 the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Although President Joe Biden’s recent executive order on foreign direct investment isn’t expected to significantly change review outcomes, it sends a clear signal to industry about the U.S.’s FDI priorities and could help companies better understand whether they should submit a voluntary filing, law firms said this month. One firm said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. may use the order as further reason to reach out to businesses about non-notified transactions.
Although U.S. human rights sanctions against China (see 2204010039) may be imposing some financial consequences, they aren’t convincing Beijing to stop committing abuses, Chris Chivvis, a former State Department sanctions official, said during a webinar last week hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He said the U.S. may need to take a different tack with China if it wants to achieve its policy goals. Chivvis directs Carnegie's American Statecraft Program.
The director of national intelligence should study how a potential “supplier partnership arrangement” between China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. and Apple would affect U.S. national security, four senators said in a Sept. 21 bipartisan letter to DNI Avril Haines. The study should assess how China supports YMTC as part of a plan to advance its domestic semiconductor industry, how YMTC potentially helps Chinese firms evade U.S. sanctions and YMTC’s role in China’s civil-military fusion program.
The Bureau of Industry and Security should clarify a number of items related to its new upcoming export controls on certain electronic computer-aided design (ECAD) software (see 2208120038 and 2208250036), including its definition for “specially designed,” semiconductor companies told the agency in comments this month. BIS should also consider updating other areas of the control, some said, including making it eligible for License Exception TSR (Technology and software under restriction).
Peter Kisang Kim, a former engineer at Broadcom, was sentenced to eight months in prison for stealing trade secrets from Broadcom, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced Sept. 20. A Ben Lomond, California, resident, Kim in May pleaded guilty to three counts of stealing trade secrets to help his new company's business prospects. Fifteen other counts of trade secrets theft were dismissed in connection with his sentencing. Following his incarceration, Kim will serve a three-year supervised release term.
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 the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Apple should “rethink” any decision to purchase chips from China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote in a Sept. 14 letter to the U.S. technology company. Cotton said Apple and “far too many” other American businesses “already rely on China for manufacturing and supplies. Adding another Chinese company to Apple’s supply chain, particularly one with close ties” to the Chinese government and military, “compounds these risks.”