Christopher Skinner, former partner at Williams Mullen, has joined ArentFox as a partner in its international trade and investment practice, the firm announced. Skinner's practice will cover export controls and sanctions compliance as well as customs and import regulations.
Dual U.S. and Russian national Vadim Yermolenko pleaded guilty Nov. 1 for his role in a scheme to illegally export controlled dual-use and military items to Russia as part of a Moscow-led sanctions evasion scheme, DOJ said. Yermolenko pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the Export Control Reform Act, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. Yermolenko faces up to 30 years in prison.
House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., plans to introduce a bill that would bring the State Department’s “scattered” economic security offices under a new deputy secretary position to help the U.S. compete with China, his office announced Nov. 1.
President Joe Biden extended for one year a national emergency that authorizes certain sanctions related to Iran, the White House said Nov. 1. The White House said "our relations with Iran have not yet normalized," and the sanctions authorities outlined in Executive Order 12170 "must continue in effect beyond November 14, 2024."
Australia on Oct. 30 issued an updated permit that authorizes Australian lawyers and law firms to provide certain legal services to, and collect fees from, parties designated under its Autonomous Sanctions Regulations. New permit SAN-2024-00138, which replaces now-revoked permit SAN-2022-00079, allows Australian people and organizations to give legal advice or legal representation to sanctioned parties in Australian courts and tribunals, including for the filing of court documents, the “engagement of expert witnesses,” and “administrative tasks necessary for legal proceedings” in Australian courts.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is being asked to do more to restrict the export of dual-use items but isn’t getting a commensurate increase in funding and personnel, a technology policy expert said last week.
The Commerce and State departments will hold a Nov. 6 public briefing to discuss details and answer questions about a new set of rules aimed at modernizing U.S. export controls over space-related technology (see 2410180027), Commerce announced in two notices released last week. The briefing will be held 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST at the Commerce building. Registration to attend in person closed Nov. 1; registration for virtual attendance will close Nov. 5. Written questions must be received by 5 p.m. EST Nov. 4.
Banks that choose not to follow a set of export compliance best practices recently issued by the Bureau of Industry and Security may be leaving themselves “wide open” to possible penalties under U.S. export regulations, a senior BIS official said, especially if they don’t have other compliance safeguards in place.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined multinational chip maker GlobalFoundries $500,000 after it illegally exported semiconductor wafers to a Entity Listed firm with ties to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s flagship chip manufacturing company.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected an argument from a Chinese engineering professor who said his illegal export shouldn't have been subject to national security controls, which made the export subject to a higher base offense (U.S. v. Yi-Chi Shih, 9th Cir. # 23-3718).