The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments on areas and priorities for export control cooperation between the U.S. and the European Union, the agency said in a notice. The comments will help inform the work of the recently established U.S-EU Trade and Technology Council and its export control working group, including efforts to harmonize controls over dual-use items and emerging technologies (see 2109290083 and 2110010036). Comments are due Jan. 14, 2022.
Several companies disclosed their filings with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. or updated the status of their ongoing CFIUS reviews this month. The filings describe one CFIUS notification involving a Taiwanese technology company, three CFIUS clearances, a transaction involving a U.S. email encryption company and more.
The Bureau of Industry and Security should clarify that certain hospitals affiliated with entries on the Entity List are not subject to Entity list restrictions, said Tory Tibor, global head of trade compliance for medical device company Olympus. Tibor said the clarification would help address confusion among third parties, including forwarders, about what types of entities are captured by Entity List controls.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 27 entities to the Entity List for illegally selling technology to China, North Korea and other sanctioned countries, for supporting China’s military modernization efforts or for contributing to Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programs, the agency said Nov. 24. The Entity List additions include a range of laboratories and companies operating in the semiconductor, microelectronics and machinery sectors in China, Japan, Pakistan and Singapore, including several major Chinese chip companies.
The State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls this week updated and issued a host of new guidance to address industry questions related to debarments, disclosures and export controls violations. The 17 new FAQs, published about three weeks after the agency said it was preparing new guidance at the request of the Defense Trade Advisory Group, address a range of compliance issues, among them what should be included in voluntary disclosures, how the agency treats those disclosures, how they affect licensing, and differences between a debarment rescission and reinstatement of export privileges.
The Biden administration should impose sanctions against Nord Stream 2 and the company behind the gas pipeline project, European security experts said. Several called the U.S.’s May sanctions waiver (see 2105200055) a mistake and urged Congress to keep pushing the administration to impose sanctions before the pipeline is operational.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for both the House and the Senate to include a range of sanctions bills in the annual defense policy legislation, which they say would further penalize international corruption and U.S. enablers of that corruption.
The European Commission this week proposed new rules that would restrict imports to “deforestation-free” goods in a bid to combat global deforestation, global warming and biodiversity loss. The rules would set “mandatory” due diligence requirements and add to the compliance responsibilities for importers of goods associated with deforestation, such as soy, beef, palm oil, wood, cocoa, coffee and leather.
Port congestion and container issues are crippling U.S. exports of pork, dairy and other agricultural products, which could permanently lose ground to competitors in foreign markets if U.S. port problems aren’t quickly resolved, industry officials said. Speaking to a House Agriculture subcommittee this week, officials urged Congress to pass the Ocean Shipping Reform Act (see 2108100011) and do more to penalize carriers for leaving the U.S. with empty containers.
A bipartisan congressional commission called on the U.S. to take more aggressive steps to stop China from acquiring sensitive U.S. technologies, including through more export controls and sanctions. The recommendations, released Nov. 17 by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission as part of its annual report to Congress, could make sweeping changes to how the Commerce Department imposes certain export controls and how U.S. agencies coordinate trade restrictions.