Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Netherlands doesn’t plan to mirror the U.S.’s recent chip restrictions on China (see 2210070049) “one-to-one” and will seek to impose export controls “on our own terms,” Liesje Schreinemacher, the country’s foreign trade minister, told Dutch news outlet NRC Nov. 18. Schreinemacher said the Netherlands has been talking “intensively” with the U.S. about export controls for two years, the report said, but a consensus on chip restrictions hasn’t been reached. But she also said a deal “could be reached within a few months,” the report said.
The U.K. this week ordered a subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology to divest from Britain's largest microchip facility, Nexperia Newport (formerly Newport Wafer Lab), several months after U.S. lawmakers urged the Biden administration to intervene in the acquisition. The U.K.’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s decision will force Wingtech’s subsidiary, Netherlands-based Nexperia, to sell at least 86% of its stake in Nexperia Newport “within a specified period and by following a specified process.” Nexperia acquired the stake in then Newport Wafer Lab in 2021.
The Bureau of Industry and Security’s new Unverified List policies, which allow the agency to move a company from the UVL to the Entity List if it can’t complete an end-use check within 60 days, likely will lead to an uptick in companies added to the Entity List, said Nazak Nikahtar, former acting BIS undersecretary. Nikakhtar said she believes many Chinese companies added to the UVL won’t participate in an end-use check that meets the U.S.’s standards.
Companies should expect “robust enforcement” from the Bureau of Industry and Security surrounding its new China-related chip controls (see 2211010042 and 2210070049), which could include more end-use checks and additions to the Entity List, said Stephenie Gosnell Handler, a Gibson Dunn trade lawyer, speaking during a webinar hosted by the law firm this week. She said companies should “ensure their red flag indicators are up to date and are being vetted appropriately.”
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Congress should create a new, “permanent” committee in the executive branch tasked with planning sanctions against China under “a range of possible scenarios,” including if it invades Taiwan, a congressional commission said this week. The bipartisan commission also said the Commerce Department should provide Congress with regular enforcement and licensing reports on certain China-related export control decisions and said the administration should create a new list of Chinese firms that should be subject to strict export licensing requirements.
U.S. and foreign companies “seem to be equally confused” by the Bureau of Industry and Security's new China chip export restrictions (see 2210070049), said Alison Stafford-Powell, a trade compliance lawyer with Baker McKenzie, speaking Nov. 15 during a virtual event hosted by the law firm. She called the new BIS rule “incredibly complex" and said industry needs more guidance from the agency.
China’s Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation is expecting its fourth quarter revenue this year to drop by 13% to 15% due in part to new U.S. export controls, the company said in an earnings release last week. SMIC said the drop in revenue is because “customers need time to interpret the newly released US export control rules” and “due to the weak demand in the mobile phone and consumer market.” The new controls, announced by the Commerce Department last month (see 2210070049), will “have an adverse impact on our production and operation,” SMIC said. “We have maintained close communications with suppliers, while the clarification of some definitions in the new rules and the assessment of impact on the Company are still in progress.”
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet in-person in Indonesia Nov. 14 to “discuss a range of regional and global issues,” the White House announced last week. The meeting will take place about a month after the U.S. announced new export licensing requirements designed to restrict China’s ability to acquire advanced computing chips and manufacture advanced semiconductors (see 2210070049).