The Census Bureau this week published a blog post to provide guidance for Automated Export System users trying to determine how to report the Ultimate Consignee in their Electronic Export Information. Census said ultimate consignee reporting becomes “more complicated” when the known end user and the Ultimate Consignee are two different entities and they reside in two different countries.
The State Department on Oct. 6 withdrew from interagency review a final rule that could have loosened export restrictions on certain controlled defense shipments and services for Ethiopia. The rule was initially sent for interagency review Aug. 17 and could remove Ethiopia from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations’ list of proscribed countries (see 2308210008).
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.
LONDON -- A looming Bureau of Industry and Security rule that would expand the agency’s restrictions on U.S. persons' activities is “going to be a compliance challenge that I don't think we're ready for,” said Robert Monjay, a former BIS analyst and export control executive with Intel.
LONDON -- The State Department hasn’t yet seen much participation in its open general license pilot program despite releasing the licenses more than a year ago, said Catherine Hamilton, the licensing director for the agency’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. Hamilton said the licenses specifically aren’t “really being used in the U.K. as we had envisioned.”
LONDON -- The U.K. is having “deep” conversations with the U.S. about aligning the two countries’ defense export regulations in an effort to slash technology sharing restrictions as part of the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) agreement, said Rosemary Pratt, director of the U.K.’s Export Control Joint Unit. Pratt said she believes the U.K. eventually will update its controls enough to benefit from a new potential defense-related license exemption being considered by Congress.
Licensing work at sanctions and export control agencies likely will grind to a near halt in the event of a federal government shutdown Oct. 1, though enforcement activities at the Bureau of Industry and Security, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls and Office of Foreign Assets Control will continue -- if previous shutdowns are any guide.
DOJ's lawsuit against SpaceX looking into whether the space exploration firm wrongly relied on export control laws to justify its alleged hiring discrimination is unconstitutional, the company said in a Sept. 15 complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The company also defended its hiring practices in its complaint, telling the court that it risks “severe consequences” for violating the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
The Census Bureau is seeking public comments on an information collection involving the Automated Export System, the agency said in a notice released this week. Census said it’s requesting “continued clearance” of AES as a result of a new conditional data element, effective Nov. 8, that shippers will need to report when exporting items classified under U.S. Munitions List Category XXI (see 2308090018). The agency requested feedback on a previous version of the information collection last November and said it’s allowing for “an additional 30 days for public comments.”
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls last week issued two new risk compliance matrices, one for businesses and one for universities, to help them comply with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The matrices, which have been under work at DDTC since at least November (see 2211100023), are meant to guide exporters, manufacturers, researchers, academics and others through an assessment of their ITAR export control risks. DDTC said that after using the documents to conduct an ITAR risk assessment, organizations and researchers should “use that data to create an effective and tailored ITAR compliance program and allocate resources as appropriate to prioritize and mitigate those risks.”