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BIS to Release First Tranche of MEU List

December 22, 2020 by Ian Cohen|Top News

The Bureau of Industry and Security plans to officially release the first tranche of its military end-user list (see 2012080046) Dec. 22, naming 103 companies that require licenses to receive certain U.S. exports, reexports or transfers. The first tranche will include 58 Chinese and 45 Russian companies that represent an “unacceptable risk of use in or diversion to” a military end-use or military end-user in China, Russia or Venezuela, the Commerce Department said Dec. 21.

The list will supplement BIS’s April rule that increased license requirements for exports to certain military end-users and for certain end-uses (see 2004270027), which has caused compliance and due diligence challenges for U.S. companies that struggle to weave through opaque ownership chains in China and other countries (see 2007090075). Commerce said it decided to release the list after receiving requests from industry to issue names and addresses of specific military end-users that are captured by the rule. Commerce hopes it helps U.S. exporters better screen their customers, Secretary Wilbur Ross said.

“The Department recognizes the importance of leveraging its partnerships with U.S. and global companies to combat efforts by China and Russia to divert U.S. technology for their destabilizing military programs, including by highlighting red flag indicators,” Ross said.

Commerce called the list “non-exhaustive,” saying companies that are not on the list but included on similar lists released by the Defense Department earlier this year (see 2012040008) will also “raise a red flag” and “require additional due diligence.” The agency also said it may add or delete companies from the list based on decisions made by the interagency End-User Review Committee.

The list will include the following entities: