Atsushi Kono, a former Akin Gump law clerk and lawyer with Japanese firm Nishimura & Asahi, was named a deputy director of Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, he announced Aug. 21 on LinkedIn. He said he is joining the International Economic Affairs Department within the ministry’s Trade Policy Bureau, where he will help the Japanese government work on international trade-related legal and policy issues.
Venezuela citizen George Semerene Quintero pleaded guilty Aug. 20 to conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions on Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA), the Venezuelan state-owned oil company where he worked, DOJ announced.
The Census Bureau emailed tips this week on how to address the most frequent messages generated this month in the Automated Export System.
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., plans this year to make another attempt to persuade Congress to pass legislation aimed at boosting U.S. exports to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, a spokesperson for the senator said Aug. 16.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week updated an export suspension order to revise the name and address of Nicolas Ayala, who was convicted in 2022 of conspiring to smuggle handguns and firearms from the U.S. to Ecuador (see 2309110017). BIS said the updated order corrects the spelling of Ayala’s name and lists an updated address.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week fined a Pennsylvania electronics business and its Hong Kong affiliate $5.8 million after the company voluntarily disclosed and admitted to illegally shipping controlled technology to China, including to military research institutes on the Entity List. The company, TE Connectivity Corporation, had “knowledge or reason to know” that the shipments violated U.S. export controls, BIS said, adding that its employees in China hid the true end-users and bypassed the company’s denied-party screening process.
The Bureau of Industry and Security on Aug. 13 completed an interagency review for an interim final rule that could place new export controls on emerging and advanced technologies in coordination with “international partners.”
A new compliance note released by the Bureau of Industry and Security this week reveals the types of export violations that universities are most commonly disclosing to BIS, what led to those violations and the steps the academic institutions took to improve their compliance programs. The agency also issued a set of resources it said universities should use for compliance, including lists of risky parties maintained by both the government and outside organizations.
The Bureau of Industry and Security on Aug. 13 suspended the export privileges of four people, including one for illegal integrated circuit exports to China, another for illegal weapons brokering, and two others for illegally exporting weapons or ammunition.
Silvaco Group, a California-based company that provides software solutions for semiconductor design, received a cautionary letter from the Office of Foreign Assets Control after disclosing possible sanctions violations involving Russia.