In a press release earlier this month, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced a tightening of controls against Chinese tech firm Huawei Technologies. BIS also added an additional 38 Huawei affiliates to the Entity List – an action that will impose a license requirement for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR)…
This past week, the Trump administration announced a ban on exports of certain types of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The new rule became effective immediately and will last four months (until August 8, 2020). While this type of activity is unusual due to its breadth and scope, those of…
Is Your Company’s Understanding of ITAR Procedures Flawed? Earlier this month, I was reading some articles online and found the following statement about a company and its ITAR requirements (bold emphasis mine): “Export-controlled technical data has a unique set of rules designed to ensure that it is not inadvertently released or “exported” to foreign persons…
According to Treasury Department statistics, during the first six months of 2019, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has issued nearly $1.3 billion in penalties. That represents 18 settled cases and is an amount which is 17 times greater than all of 2018 (when there were seven settled cases.) The totals for OFAC penalties…
On June 20, 2019, the Department of Justice announced that Walmart and its wholly owned Brazilian subsidiary plead guilty and agreed to pay a combined criminal penalty of $137 million to resolve allegations of violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”). The fines include $728,898 in criminal penalties, $3,694,490 in criminal forfeiture, plus a…
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?”…
After a delay due to the government shutdown, the U.S. government recently announced increases to civil penalties for export related violations. Pursuant to the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015, civil penalties for export related violations should have increased on 3 January 2019. However, given the fact that the USG was…
“Hey Alexa, are you a U.S. Person?” Imagine this. A conference call with your foreign-based customer is about to begin. Today’s agenda includes technical discussions of recent upgrades and changes to the designs of some ITAR-controlled items. Your Trade Compliance Officer has reviewed the material and confirmed that export authorizations are in place approving the…