The Bureau of Industry and Security this week added eight companies to its Unverified List after it was unable to verify the “legitimacy and reliability” of the entities through end-use checks, including their ability to responsibly receive controlled U.S. exports. It also removed two companies from the list after BIS said it was able to successfully conduct end-use checks.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. is increasingly requiring companies to enter into mitigation agreements before approving a deal, and those agreements are getting more complex, said a former senior government official who worked on CFIUS cases. And although some companies fear the ongoing CFIUS review of Japan’s Nippon Steel signals that the committee could be veering away from its traditional national security focus, the former official said he’s not expecting the Nippon Steel case to spark a trend of politically motivated reviews.

The U.K. this week issued new guidance to mark the official launch of the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, a new agency that it said will boost the country’s powers to investigate, catch and penalize Russia-related sanctions evaders and others who breach U.K. trade controls outside the country (see 2409130015).

A DOJ indictment unsealed this week charges three Russians with export control violations after the agency said they illegally bought more than $225,000 worth of U.S. microelectronics, hiding from American exporters that the items were destined for the Russian military.

New export compliance guidance issued by the Bureau of Industry and Security outlines the agency’s due diligence expectations for financial institutions and warns that companies that “self-blind” to red flags could face penalties.

Oregon-based aerospace parts manufacturer Precision Castparts Corp. was fined $3 million after the State Department said its subsidiary illegally shared technical data with employees who were foreign nationals of Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Bhutan, Peru and Burundi, violating U.S. defense export controls.

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The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week made several revisions to a May rule that updated its reporting, procedures and penalties regulations (see 2405080023), and offered guidance on how banks and their customers should treat cases in which a bank accidentally blocks funds because of mistaken identity or other errors.

The U.S. is increasingly expecting companies to monitor government guidance as well as export violations committed by others, and to use those cases as “lessons learned” to improve their own compliance programs, lawyers said this week.

As EU member states prepare to vote this week on new tariffs for Chinese electric vehicles, a German trade official and auto industry representative said they believe the EU and China can still reach a “political” agreement to work through their issues and avoid the punitive duties, which they say would harm EU consumers and European car manufacturers that have factories in China.