The U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) recently settled with Mattson Technology of Fremont, CA, in a case which alleges 47 EAR violations from 2006 to 2008. According to the order from BIS, Mattson “sold, transferred or otherwise serviced” pressure transducers “with knowledge that violations of the Regulations were about to occur or were intended to occur.”
ITAR compliance is agreeably difficult, and exemptions are not “exempt” from this conundrum. Take, for example, the export of defense articles and technical data.
Earlier this month, DDTC made final a new exemption for certain exports to the United Kingdom in §126.17 of the ITAR. A quick look at the new 126.17 reminds me of the Canadian exemption (§126.5) in a number of ways.
Less than two months after they were added to the Excluded Party List System (EPLS), it now appears that the last of the freight forwarders have been removed from the EPLS – paving the way for a return to “business as usual” for exporters.
An Australian man and his company have been charged with several counts of violating the EAR and ITAR (as well as OFAC trade embargoes). The charges point to an alleged scheme to export restricted items from the U.S. to Iran.
I’ve been involved with many clients’ denied parties list (DPL) screening programs for a number of years, and it’s easy to be lulled into a sense of thinking that the risks of a problem are very low.
Many clients are surprised when they start working on their export policy by the amount of flexibility there is – particularly when it comes to how they comply with the regulations. This most often occurs during the development or improvement of a company’s export compliance procedures.
Whoever said freight forwarders weren’t responsible for export compliance? A recent settlement from the BIS seems to point at a new trend in government enforcement of U.S. export regulations. Namely, holding all parties accountable for their actions.
We get a lot of questions from clients about what to do if they use suppliers who are not registered with DDTC to perform ITAR-related work. What does the government say about this dilemma? And what do we recommend?