End-use certificates can be a good way to mitigate some sanctions and export control risk, but “it doesn't necessarily make the risk completely disappear,” said Jan Dunin-Wasowicz, a Hughes Hubbard trade lawyer. Dunin-Wasowicz cautioned companies about relying solely on end-use and end-user statements when conducting due diligence, adding that companies can take other compliance steps to vet a transaction, especially because some customers are willing to lie about a product's end-use.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
The Biden administration should take several steps to boost U.S. agricultural exports, including by negotiating new free trade deals and better eliminating tariff and nontariff barriers, industry executives said during a President’s Export Council meeting this week. They also urged the administration to enforce existing trade agreements and more quickly make progress in reforming the World Trade Organization.
Republican leaders of the House Financial Services Committee urged Congress this week to exclude a measure from the upcoming 2024 defense spending bill that could lead to new guardrails around U.S. outbound investments into China. They said existing sanctions and export control measures are sufficient to target Chinese military and technology companies, and any new investment restrictions would only limit American “control, influence, and intelligence gathering” in China.
The Bureau of Industry and Security’s recent increase in enforcement of anti-boycott regulations signals the agency will “continue to be active in this space,” and companies may want to review their compliance programs, Arnold & Porter said in a Nov. 28 client advisory. “It may be time for U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries -- especially those conducting business in or involving the Middle East region -- to establish, review, and/or update their antiboycott compliance programs,” the firm said.
The House Oversight Committee is probing the Bureau of Industry and Security's 90-day suspension of new export licenses for firearms, saying the potentially “extralegal” decision was made with no explanation and infringes on the Commerce Department’s goal of increasing U.S. competitiveness. Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., in a letter this week to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, requested a briefing on the issue by Dec. 5 and asked for a range of agency documents before Dec. 12, including any related to the decision-making process that led to the suspension announcement.
DOJ is increasingly prioritizing corporate enforcement against executives -- regardless of how high they rank -- and is more frequently looking to take those cases to trial, said Marshall Miller, principal associate deputy attorney general.
The Biden administration will soon add another industry advisory committee to provide input on U.S. export control regulations.
The Biden administration should investigate all Chinese lidar technology companies to determine whether they should be placed on the Entity List or made subject to U.S. investment restrictions, the House Select Committee on China said in a letter this week. The lawmakers said lidar, or light detection and ranging, is being used in autonomous systems and robotics but isn’t subject to export controls, potentially allowing a loophole for Chinese companies to acquire U.S. technologies for use in lidar systems that can aid the country’s military.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control’s historic fine of virtual currency exchange Binance could signal more enforcement action against fintech companies, particularly those that may be cutting corners within their sanctions compliance programs, law firms said this month. They also said the case shows OFAC may specifically be targeting companies that don’t have enough compliance buy-in from senior management.
A senior State Department official this week said the U.S. is planning to eventually include other nations in an ongoing effort to reduce burdensome defense export control requirements for Australia and the U.K. In perhaps the strongest endorsement yet by a U.S. official of the concept, Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary for arms control and international security, said the U.S. wants to involve other nations after it works through its current process under the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership.