May 2024 Export Practitioner

U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an Advisory to assist financial institutions in detecting potentially illicit transactions related to …

The Justice Department, together with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), announced that Williams-Sonoma Inc.  has agreed to a settlement that requires it to pay more than $3 million in civil penalties and stop making false and misleading claims about the origins of its products.

Two Chinese Nationals were indicted for attempting to conceal the ultimate end user for semiconductor manufacturing equipment purchased from a California manufacturer. The defendants sought to acquire the machine through an intermediary company, a proxy they fraudulently represented as the purchaser and end user.

Congressional Republicans are demanding answers from Georgia Tech regarding its partnership with Tianjin University, a Chinese university with significant ties to the Chinese military, the People's …

A bipartisan group of senators have introduced legislation aimed at expanding the Australia- United Kingdom-United States partnership to include Japan in order to combat the growing threat of China. The Coordinating AUKUS Engagement with Japan Act directs the two AUKUS coordinators at the U.S. Departments of State and Defense to engage with Japan, and consult with counterparts in the U.K. and Australia, at technical level to better understand how Japan could augment the partnership and what steps Japan might need to take in order to engage quickly and meaningfully in AUKUS advanced technology projects.

US businesses with suppliers located in China’s Xinjiang region cannot rely on social audits to confirm whether forced labor in being used in their supply chains, a top Administration labor official told lawmakers in an April 30 hearing. . “Social audits in China should not be seen as an authoritative source for companies reflecting on-the-ground human rights conditions,”Deputy Undersecretary of Labor for International Affairs Thea Lee said.

The United States, as Chair of the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP), and MSP partners welcome the new deal finalized between STL, a subsidiary of La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Belgian company Umicore that advances cooperation on germanium offtake and processing.

Ohio senator Sherrod Brown (D) is calling on the Biden Administration to ban all Chinese internet-connected vehicles and smart vehicle technology that is designed, developed, manufactured or supplied …

Controlling intangible transfers of technology (ITT) and software—including in the context of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR)—is a known challenge, but the growth of the …

Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, Bureau of Political Military Affairs, Department of State (T/PM/DDTC) is surveying Individuals and companies registered with DDTC and engaged in the business of manufacturing, brokering, exporting, or temporarily importing defense hardware or defense technology data.   The information collection in question is the Statement of Material Change, Merger, Acquisition, or Divestiture of a Registered Party.

BIS Publishes final rule making conforming and clarifying changes to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). These changes include making conforming changes to the EAR to ensure that destination names reflect the current destination names that are recognized by the United States Government, clarifying the removal of certain license requirements for exports, reexports, and transfers (in-country) to and within Australia and the United Kingdom, making a conforming change to reflect that Cyprus is no longer a Country Group D:5 country, and clarifying how Russia and the Russian Federation are referenced for consistency with the designation of Russia as a U.S. Arms Embargoed destinations.

Reuters reports the Commerce Department is considering a new regulatory push to restrict the export of proprietary or closed source AI models There are currently no restrictions on the sale of AI models to foreign adversaries, presenting a potential national security risk.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to the Department of Defense (DoD), following a "deeply troubling" Wall Street Journal investigation revealing that Starlink, a satellite-internet service and subsidiary of DoD contractor SpaceX, is being used by Russia and other sanctioned U.S. adversaries, and concerns that the company has not taken appropriate action to stop this illicit activity.

The April 19 IFR loosening license requirements for dual-use trade is corrected to include only portions of those firearms ECCNs previously controlled for national security column 1 (NS1) or regional stability column 1 (RS1) reasons for control for the destinations of Australia and the United Kingdom will continue to require a license. The revised proposed rule conforms with the existing treatment of Canada.