The Commerce Department will soon launch a new feature to automatically warn filers if they are exporting a controlled item without a license, an improvement the agency hopes leads to better due diligence among exporters. The agency will deploy the Automated Export System feature Jan. 13, 2022, the Census Bureau said in a Dec. 6 email to industry. The announcement has been expected since October (see 2110180027). The new feature will alert exporters that incorrectly list License Requirement NLR (No License Required) for shipments that require a license under the Export Administration Regulations. The message will appear with the response code 66Q and will serve as a warning message to filers for the first six months after the Jan. 13 effective date, Census said. After the six-month period, the agency will upgrade the warning to a “fatal” error, which will block the exporter from moving forward with the filing. Exporters having difficulties with the error message or reporting their information correctly but still receiving the message should email the Bureau of Industry and Security at ECDOEXS@bis.doc.gov, Census said. Exporters should ask about the Export Control Classification Number associated with their export and any other “additional licensing authorization that may be required,” Census said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is proposing to clarify and expand restrictions on using License Exception Strategic Trade Authorization (see 2109130013), which it hopes will reduce exporter “confusion” and better control certain sensitive technologies, BIS said Oct. 21.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will issue new export controls on certain cybersecurity items and create a new license exception for those exports, BIS said in an interim final rule released Oct. 20. The rule, which will align U.S. cybersecurity restrictions with controls previously agreed to at the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement, will establish more restrictions on certain items that can be used for “malicious cyber activities” by imposing a license requirement for shipments to certain countries, BIS said. The changes take effect Jan. 19, and BIS will accept public comments until Dec. 6.
RANCHO MIRAGE, California -- The Commerce Department and CBP will soon deploy a new feature in the Automated Export System to automatically warn filers if they are exporting a controlled item without a license, a BIS official said. The agencies hope to launch the feature -- which should help exporters, freight forwarders and carriers better conduct due diligence -- in the next few months, said Richard Sylvestri, a senior export administration analyst in the Bureau of Industry and Security's Western Regional Office.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a Texas semiconductor component manufacturer nearly $500,000 for illegally exporting controlled wafers to Russia via Bulgaria (see 2012210013), the agency said in a Sept. 28 order. The company, Silicon Space Technology Corporation, which began doing business as Vorago Technologies in 2015, worked with a Russian engineering firm to export “rad-hard 16MB Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) wafers,” which were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations for spacecraft and related components.
The Bureau of Industry and Security issued Sept. 17 guidance on export control information related to radiation hardened integrated circuits. The guidance includes a frequently asked question about whether certain integrated circuits are considered to be “rated as radiation hardened” under Export Control Classification Number 3A001.a.1 or meet or exceed the characteristics in ECCN 9A515.d or e. Another FAQ addresses how the classification of “standard fabrication process technologies” are impacted if they don’t meet certain required standards in the Export Administration Regulations. The final FAQ addresses whether the U.S. government, in developing plans to “prevent the release of controlled technology during the lifecycle of an acquisition,” can rely on “industry technology control plans for programs using onshore foundries for integrated circuit production.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week sent a final rule for interagency review that would expand export controls on certain biological equipment software. The rule, received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Sept. 13, would amend the Commerce Control List by adding a new Export Control Classification Number to control software “for the operation of automated nucleic acid assemblers and synthesizers” that are “capable of designing and building functional genetic elements from digital sequence data.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security released a final rule to make technical corrections and clarifications (see 2108110010) to a 2020 rule that transferred export control jurisdiction over certain firearms from the State Department to the Commerce Department. The rule, released Aug. 18 and effective Sept. 20, introduced changes to make the requirements “easier to understand” and “interpreted consistently,” BIS said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added five Chinese companies to the Entity List for their involvement in the government’s human rights abuses against Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region, the agency said in a final rule. For each of the entities, BIS will impose a license requirement for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. The final rule takes effect June 24.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will on June 24 add five Chinese companies to the Entity List for their involvement in the government’s human rights abuses against Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang region. For each of the entities, BIS will impose a license requirement for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. Items classified under several Export Control Classification Numbers will be subject to a case-by-case review policy, but all other exports will be subject to a presumption of denial. No license exceptions will be available.