The multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement this month posted a summary of export control changes made during the group’s Nov. 30 plenary meeting, covering editorial changes, clarifications and updated control parameters for various categories under its list of dual-use goods and technologies. Wassenaar’s plenary chair said member states adopted new controls involving equipment used to make certain electronic components, updated existing controls for “high-performance electronic equipment,” and clarified language surrounding sonar technology, optical sensors, rocket propulsion technologies, encryption and decryption technologies, and communication interception technologies, among other updates.
American chip designer Nvidia is working with the Biden administration to make sure its products comply with U.S. export restrictions, CEO Jensen Huang said during a news conference in Singapore this week.
The Bureau of Industry and Security's addition of 42 entities to the Entity List this week “sends a clear message” that the U.S. and its allies “are watching and will act forcefully” in response to Russian export control evasion, BIS official Thea Kendler said. “Our controls are in place to protect the national security of the United States, and bad actors that violate them will be held accountable.”
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls issued a final rule last week to temporarily modify a note within its aircraft-related export controls under Category VIII of the U.S. Munitions List.
The Bureau of Industry and Security sent a final rule for interagency review that will make tweaks, clarifications and corrections to its recent chip export control updates, which were released last month and placed new license requirements on additional chips and chipmaking tools, among other changes (see 2310170055). BIS sent the correction rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Nov. 27. BIS officials have said the agency is looking to clarify several issues with the rule that exporters have raised over the past month and correct other provisions that “may not have fully hit the mark we intended” (see 2311060067 and 2311160044).
The Commerce and Treasury departments earlier this month co-hosted a virtual “exchange” with small to mid-sized financial institutions, law enforcement and government agencies to discuss Russian attempts to evade export controls, the agencies announced Nov. 21. The exchange included officials from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Office of Foreign Assets Control and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and “exemplified the ongoing U.S. Government effort to further constrain and prevent Russia from accessing the international financial system and conduct economic activity to fund its invasion of Ukraine,” Treasury said. The effort came about a week after BIS and FinCEN issued another set of export control evasion red flags for financial services firms along with a new key term that banks and others can include in their suspicious activity reports (see 2311060055).
The Bureau of Industry and Security has completed a round of interagency review for a proposed rule that could make “enhancements” to and simplify License Exception Strategic Trade Authorization, which authorizes certain exports to trusted U.S. allies if the foreign importer certifies that they won’t reexport the item outside a list of STA countries. BIS sent the rule for interagency review Sept. 8 (see 2309110009), and the review was completed Nov. 17. The agency has said it wants more exporters to use the license exception, which could help expedite certain exports and reduce the workload for the government (see 2209280042).
The Bureau of Industry and Security recently made available its process by which companies may begin submitting notifications for certain exports of “gray-zone” semiconductors that fall just below the new chip control parameters announced last month (see 2310170055). As part of the updated restrictions, BIS is requiring a notification under new License Exception Notified Advanced Computing (NAC), which will authorize certain exports of certain chips to China, Macau and destinations subject to a U.S. arms embargo.
Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba is nixing plans to spin off its cloud computing division due to “uncertainties” caused by recently updated U.S. chip export controls on China. Alibaba was planning to publicly list its Cloud Intelligence Group, a cloud computing services business, but said last week it fears “these new restrictions may materially and adversely affect” the cloud computing division’s “ability to offer products and services and to perform under existing contracts.”
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls sent a proposed rule for interagency review that could amend certain language in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations. The rule, sent for review Nov. 5, would specifically make revisions to definitions and export controls related to defense services.