A Texas shipper accused major Chinese ocean carrier Cosco Shipping Lines of violating U.S. shipping regulations through unfair detention and demurrage charges, costing it nearly $2 million in damages. Visual Comfort & Co, a shipper of lighting products, said Cosco “refused” to extend free days for containers that couldn’t be returned to the port and declined to divert shipments to less crowded ports, allowing the carrier to charge “astronomical” D&D fees.
The U.S. shouldn’t rush to impose new export controls on sensitive lidar technology, experts said, mostly because American firms may not have chokepoints over lidar and the restrictions may hurt U.S. export revenue.
The Commerce Department is accepting nominations for a relaunched industry advisory committee that will provide input on U.S. export control regulations.
The U.S. should push for export controlled semiconductors to be installed with a mechanism that would automatically bar those chips from being used in ways that violate U.S. export restrictions, researchers said in a new report this week. They said this would significantly aid export enforcement efforts and could potentially allow compliant chip companies to sell to a broader range of customers.
The Federal Maritime Commission is granting ocean carriers special permission to immediately hike rates on containers that are being rerouted around the southern cape of Africa, in response to concerns over possible Houthi rebel attacks on usual routes through the Red Sea.
The State Department’s recently published fall 2023 regulatory agenda mentions rules that will update defense export controls and make other changes and clarifications to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security published a new set of frequently asked questions for its recently updated semiconductor export controls (see 2310170055), offering guidance on the agency’s new export notification requirement, its controls on U.S. persons activities, the scope of its end-use controls, direction for electronic export information filers and more. The FAQs also give input on several export scenarios that may require a license and preview at least one export control revision that BIS plans to make.
The Netherlands “partially revoked” an ASML export license that allowed the Dutch chip equipment maker to send certain advanced semiconductor equipment to China, ASML said Jan. 1. The company said it now faces new restrictions on exports of NXT:2050i and NXT:2100i lithography systems to China, which it said will affect a “small number” of customers in the country.
The Federal Maritime Commission finalized several changes to its rules for carrier automated tariffs, including one that would bar carriers from charging a fee to access their tariff systems and others that aim to increase transparency around certain “pass-through” charges assessed to shippers. The FMC also abandoned a proposed change that would have required the documentation for a broader range of containers to include the name of all non-vessel operating common carriers with touchpoints to that cargo, a proposal that faced strong opposition from multiple trade groups and logistics companies.