Regulatory Blast – Drinking from a Firehose! The recent regulatory landscape is ever changing. In fact, I am finding it hard to stay up to date – and I am what some may say “experienced”! The other day, I told a colleague that I had not had an easy question to answer that week! In…
Did you know that the anti-boycott laws are part of export compliance? If not, you are not alone as this is often an overlooked due diligence requirement necessary to comply with the U.S. export laws. Understanding what U.S. anti-boycott compliance means and how it affects day-to-day operations is key to adhering to the requirements. These…
Complying with export regulations can be hard! Knowing where to find the regulations, how to interpret them and apply them to your business in a constantly dynamic and changing environment is challenging to say the least; not to mention that regulations are not static. This means what was okay last week, may not be okay…
This past July, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) recently issued guidance on addressing both export controls and diversion risks. (Diversion risk refers to the potential for items, technology, or services to be redirected or transferred to unauthorized end-users or end-uses, which can violate export control laws and regulations). The guidance outlines various actions BIS…
After over 15 years of maintaining the same fee structure for International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) registration, the U.S. State Department has proposed amendments to increase the fees required for Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) enrollment. As a reminder, the export regulations require registration for those engaged in manufacturing, exporting, temporarily importing, or brokering of…
The Foreign Trade Division of the U.S. Census Bureau is the official source for U.S. export and import statistics. This agency is responsible for issuing regulations governing the reporting of all export shipments from the United States. Any exporter who ships outside of the United States is responsible for complying with these regulations and for…
Do you slap “Made in USA” labels on your products or advertise in this way? Can you, without a doubt, declare your products are – in fact – made in the USA? This is one of the most overused (and misunderstood) proclamations companies make on the market today. Ensuring accuracy is imperative because the consequences…
If you’ve spent the last year-and-a-half focused on Russia, hold that thought, and don’t take your eye off other bad actors around the world. That’s what the U.S. Government is warning with its third joint notice, published earlier this month. The previous two notices were specific to Russia. Now, the new notice warns U.S. institutions…
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: “We don’t make munitions or sell weapons, so we are good on all those export-law requirements.” Statements like this make most trade compliance managers cringe. Why? Because there’s so much more to import/export compliance than just “selling munitions.” I can remember a case, years ago, when GEICO got…
Trade compliance audits can be scary, cumbersome and time-consuming. Why would any company subject itself to this? The importance of any import/export compliance audit is to avoid the dreaded “F&P” words. These are two words that most companies don’t want to hear … or even say (unless it’s behind closed doors). I’m talking about Fines…