As the Bureau of Industry and Security adds new export controls on emerging technologies, it should also remove outdated restrictions on items that may no longer warrant licensing requirements, such as life jackets and fire extinguishers, the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report. The think tank also urged BIS to shrink the Entity List to only entities that pose the most serious national security threats and consider giving preferential licensing treatment to a broader set of countries, including Vietnam and Moldova.
Congress should order a review of U.S. semiconductor export controls against China and ask the administration to create a public database of entities connected to China’s military, which would help U.S. companies with their compliance practices, a congressional commission said this week. The bipartisan commission also said Congress should explore the idea of a single export licensing system to streamline export requirements overseen by both the Commerce and State departments.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is pushing its annual update conference until next year, the agency announced on its website. The conference was originally scheduled for Nov. 28-30 in Washington but now will be held March 27-29, 2024, BIS said. Existing registrations will remain valid for the new conference dates, but attendees and exhibitors may request refunds.
The Bureau of Industry and Security again renewed the temporary denial order for Russia's Rossiya Airlines, saying the company has continued to illegally operate planes in violation of U.S. export controls, including on flights between Russia and Egypt and Russia and Uzbekistan. The agency renewed the denial order for one year from Nov. 8, part of a change the agency announced in August that allows it to renew certain orders for one year instead of the previous 180-day maximum (see 2308290029). BIS first suspended the export privileges of the airline in May 2022 (see 2205200008) and has renewed the order multiple times.
The U.S. should have placed export controls on a broader range of semiconductors, including legacy chips, as part of its efforts over the last year to restrict sales of advanced semiconductors to China, said Nazak Nikakhtar, a former acting Bureau of Industry and Security undersecretary. She said a lack of legacy chip controls is allowing China to dominate that sector of the industry and grab market share away from companies in the U.S. and its allies, including South Korea and Taiwan.
DOJ-Commerce Department Disruptive Technology Strike Force senior officials traveled to Ukraine last week to speak with Ukrainian officials about Russia-related export enforcement and ways the two sides can better share information. The delegation -- which included Matthew Axelrod, Commerce’s top export enforcement official, and Matthew Olsen, the head of DOJ’s National Security Division -- spoke about efforts to “stop the flow of sensitive technologies to aid the Russian war machine,” the Bureau of Industry and Security said in a readout of the meetings.
The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a temporary denial order on Nov. 7 against seven people and three companies for orchestrating a scheme to illegally export millions of dollars worth of export-controlled dual-use electronics to Russia. BIS said the U.S.-origin items were bought by Russian procurement agents and transshipped through other countries before being delivered to Russian companies with ties to the country’s military.
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent a proposed rule for interagency review that could lead to changes to its end-use and end-user-based export controls. The rule, sent to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Nov. 3, could specifically amend the BIS U.S. persons controls involving military and military intelligence end uses and end users.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined Forta, a U.S. synthetic fiber manufacturer, $44,750 after the company violated BIS’ antiboycott regulations. Forta voluntarily disclosed the violations, which included providing its freight forwarder ahead of a trade show in Abu Dhabi with certifications that its products weren’t made with Israeli labor or raw materials.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is planning to soon issue a rule that will offer clarifications and corrections to its recently updated export controls on advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment, said Thea Kendler, the agency’s assistant secretary for export administration (see 2310170055).