China officially requested dispute consultations with the U.S. at the World Trade Organization Dec. 15 over American export controls on certain semiconductors, the WTO announced. China, which announced the move earlier in the week (see 2212120061), said the restrictions violate Article XXII of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 (GATT), Article XXII of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, Article 8 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures and Article 64.1 of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
A recent joint alert by the Commerce and Treasury departments has been a boon to industry and the government, and has given export control officers more leads to track down potential Russia violations, said Matthew Axelrod, Commerce’s top export enforcement official. Axelrod said the alert has been so successful that the two agencies are hoping to publish another one next year.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week renewed the temporary denial order for Belavia Belarusian Airlines, Belarus' state-owned national airline. BIS first suspended the export privileges of the airline in June (see 2206160015), barring it from participating in transactions with items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. The agency renewed the denial order for another 180 days on Dec. 13 after finding Belavia continues to illegally operate aircraft subject to the EAR, including for flights between Russia, Belarus, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added a host of Chinese and Russian entities to the Entity List, including top Chinese chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. and leading Chinese artificial intelligence firms, the agency said in a pair of notices released Dec. 15. The new restrictions on the Chinese firms are aimed at “severely restricting” China’s ability to leverage AI, advanced computing and other commercial technologies for its military or human rights abuses, BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez said. The agency added the Russian entities to the list after it was unable to complete end-use checks. The changes took effect Dec. 16.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security is preparing to add China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. and 35 other Chinese companies to its Entity List as early as this week, Bloomberg reported Dec. 13. YMTC and other companies have been at risk of being added to the Entity List since being placed on the BIS Unverified List in October. Under a new policy, BIS can transfer entities from the UVL to the more restrictive Entity List if they don’t cooperate with a U.S. end-use check within 60 days (see 2210070006). A BIS spokesperson didn’t comment.
The Bureau of Industry and Security isn’t preparing any “imminent” emerging technology export controls on artificial intelligence items, Hillary Hess, the agency’s regulatory policy director, said during a technical advisory committee meeting this week. She also denied an industry rumor the U.S. is preparing to issue a set of sweeping, advanced AI controls, similar to the semiconductor restrictions against China that were released in October.
The Bureau of Industry and Security should have given its technical advisory committees more time to review its new chip controls before they were published in October (see 2210070049), which would have helped BIS mitigate unintended consequences for a dense and complex set of restrictions, a chip industry official and an advisory committee member said this week. The semiconductor industry also wished BIS had first proposed some of the restrictions for public comment before making them final, the official said, or delayed the effective date to give companies more time to decipher the rules, especially surrounding the new U.S.-persons restrictions.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will add a host of Chinese and Russian entities to the Entity List, including top Chinese chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., the agency said in a pair of notices released Dec. 15.
The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a 180-day temporary denial order this week against three people and two companies for illegally sending controlled exports to Russia as part of a Moscow-led sanctions evasion scheme. Along with the denial order, DOJ indicted the three people, along with others, on charges related to the illegal exports, including money laundering, wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiring to defraud the U.S.
Japan and the Netherlands have “agreed in principle” to join the U.S. in imposing certain new semiconductor export controls on China (see 2212080012), Bloomberg reported Dec. 12. The agreement, which will likely be announced in the “coming weeks,” will see Japan and the Netherlands “adopt at least some” of the restrictions announced by the Bureau of Industry and Security in October (see 2210070049), the report said. The two countries are planning to restrict exports of “machinery capable of fabricating 14-nanometer or more advanced chips to China,” the report said. A BIS spokesperson pointed to Undersecretary Alan Estevez's comments last week, when he said he remains confident U.S. allies will impose similar export restrictions against China (see 2212060059).