Trade Compliance Specialists juggle many tasks to ensure their company’s exported and imported goods remain compliant. Their hard work helps uphold the organization’s reputation and ensures the global supply chain is uninterrupted by compliance issues. So when you start a new compliance job, you’ll have to hit the ground running to keep your compliance tasks…
It’s been a year since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. During that time, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has implemented sweeping sanctions, export controls and other measures against Russia. This includes adding more than 2,500 targets to the SDN List and sanctioning 80% of Russian banks. Now, OFAC is targeting…
“We don’t export anything.” This is something we hear all the time. Sometimes, it’s followed by: “Well, we do ship stuff to Canada. Does that count?” (Pro Tip: Yes, it counts.) But other times, our clients really don’t put something in a box and send it to a foreign country. Yet, they still need help….
When I started my career in trade compliance in 1990, our friends and foes were discussed in terms of “COCOM” – Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls. COCOM was an established group of “western bloc” member states and cooperating countries whose mission was to enact an embargo on “eastern bloc” countries (mainly Russia). During this…
December 1989. Dresden, East Germany. The Berlin Wall has fallen, heralding the end of the Cold War. A surge of pro-democracy sentiment sweeps through Eastern Europe. One fateful night in December, a crowd of demonstrators tries to storm a nondescript building known to be the East German headquarters of the KGB. Rushing outside, a panicked,…
If you made a list of corporations that you’d never want to battle in court, which one would be at the top of that list? Perhaps one with $200 billion in cash? Maybe one with a market cap of $2.8 trillion and the second-most valuable brand in the world? Last month, a small Israeli company…
Appropriate to the Season and to something that should stay with us all throughout the year… On the first day of Christmas my company gave to me- A Management Compliance Policy which establishes my management’s and my company’s commitment to export compliance; On the second day of Christmas my company gave to me- An Export…
The U.S. Department of Commerce announced sanctions against twenty-eight Chinese governmental and commercial organizations for engaging in or enabling activities contrary to the foreign policy interests of the United States, by adding these organizations to the Entity List. Eight of the entities are companies and the remaining twenty are municipal and county public security bureaus…
In a previous blog, we discussed the concept of “reasonable care” as it applies to your trade compliance program. The focus was how export and import programs dovetail with many other areas of compliance, such as policies and procedures, valuation, Free Trade Agreements, and more. Today, I’d like to switch gears and talk about how…
Ever wonder why your license application is taking so long to be reviewed and approved? Many thoughts go through a Compliance Officer’s mind when the license process is taking longer than expected: “Did I make a mistake on the license application?” “Should I have provided more information?” “Did I miss something in my due diligence?”…