The U.S. shouldn’t be targeting American companies that exclude foreign applicants for job openings if those policies are meant to protect American sensitive technologies, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said in a letter to DOJ. Vance’s letter came after DOJ in recent enforcement actions targeted both SpaceX and General Motors for using export control laws to justify restrictive hiring practices, highlighting the risks facing companies looking to fill positions that involve export-controlled items, Barnes & Thornburg said in a recent client alert.

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The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a temporary denial order last week against three people and four companies for their involvement in a scheme to illegally procure more than $225,000 worth of U.S. electronics components for Russia’s military. One of the individuals, Russian-German national Arthur Petrov, was arrested Aug. 26 in Cyprus and charged by DOJ with violating export controls and smuggling controlled goods from the U.S.

Contractual language against forced labor may not be enough to meet increasing supply chain due diligence regulations, particularly as the EU implements its corporate sustainability due diligence directive (see 2202230073 and 2306010022), Ernst & Young advisers said this week. Although there is still debate about how broadly the bloc’s new rules will be scoped, the advisers warned companies against blinding themselves to rising government expectations.

Financial technology company Wise Payments Limited violated the U.K.'s sanctions on Russia when it allowed a company owned by a sanctioned person to withdraw funds from a business account, the U.K. said this week. The announcement marked the U.K.’s first use of its new sanctions enforcement disclosure “power,” an authority it acquired last year that allows it to publish details of sanctions violations in cases where the party isn’t hit with a monetary penalty.

U.S. officials during their trip to China this week outlined expectations for end-use checks in the country and rebuffed requests from Beijing to reduce export restrictions on advanced technology, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. While the American contingent isn’t leaving China with concrete resolutions to trade issues, she said she believes commitments from both sides to increase communication, including as part of an export control enforcement working group, were a positive first step.

The Biden administration should take an “end-user list-based approach” to restricting investments in Chinese artificial intelligence companies as part of its recent executive order on outbound investment (see 2308090066 and 2308100045), researchers with Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology said in a report this week. The report said the Treasury Department can use its Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies (CMIC) List as a “foundation” by updating and expanding it to restrict AI investments beyond publicly traded securities.

The Bureau of Industry and Security will now be able to renew its temporary denial orders for one year instead of the previous maximum of 180 days, the agency said in a final rule. BIS said it can now request extended renewals of TDOs if it demonstrates the parties subject to the orders -- which generally suspend them from participating in transactions subject to the Export Administration Regulations -- have “engaged in a pattern of repeated, ongoing and/or continuous apparent violations of the EAR.”

The State Department fined a U.S.-based specialty chemicals supplier $850,000 for allegedly violating defense export regulations and failing to voluntarily disclose those violations, the agency announced in an order and settlement agreement this week. The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls said Island Pyrochemical Industries Corp. illegally acted as a broker between Brazilian and Chinese companies for shipments of chemicals used in explosives and made false statements on a license application to DDTC.

The U.S. and China launched a new commercial trade working group and a new pathway to exchange information on export control enforcement, two initiatives to allow the countries to better communicate around sensitive trade issues, the Commerce Department announced during meetings between Washington and Beijing officials this week. The export enforcement information sharing initiative, which will meet for the first time this week, is aimed at reducing “misunderstanding” surrounding U.S. policies toward China, Commerce said, including export restrictions on critical and sensitive technologies.