Trade Show Antiboycott Cases Abound

A Pennsylvania flashlight manufacturer is the latest US firm to get caught up in antiboycott violations related to participating in trade shows in the Middle East.

Streamlight, Inc. paid the Commerce Department a $44,750 penalty to resolve three alleged violations of the antiboycott provisions of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). 

Streamlight admitted to the conduct set forth in the Proposed Charging Letter, which alleged that Streamlight violated the antiboycott provisions of the EAR by furnishing information about its business relationships with boycotted countries or blacklisted persons and failing to report the receipt of a request to engage in a restrictive trade practice or foreign boycott against a country friendly to the United States.

Specifically, Streamlight participated in a trade show in Bahrain in 2019.  In connection with the shipment of goods for display at the trade show, the company furnished to its freight forwarder/logistics provider a commercial invoice/packing list certifying that the goods were not of Israeli origin and not manufactured by a company on the “Israeli Boycott Blacklist.”

Furnishing such information is prohibited by Section 760.2(d) of the EAR.  In addition, the company failed to report to BIS the receipt of the request to furnish this information, as required by Section 760.5 of the EAR. 

Streamlight voluntarily self-disclosed the conduct to BIS, cooperated with the investigation by BIS’s Office of Antiboycott Compliance (OAC), and implemented remedial measures after discovering the conduct at issue, all of which resulted in a significant reduction in penalty.   The Order, Settlement Agreement, and Proposed Charging Letter are available here.

Growing Compliance Challenge

As enforcement of the antiboycott provisions becomes more prevalent, compliance awareness must be distributed across the enterprise.    While export compliance may be routinized in a firm's international shipping and receiving operations, the administrative personnel and contractors handling trade show displays and samples may not bear similar scrutiny.     

Recent enforcement actions appear as BIS is shooting fish in a barrel:

• In July 2023, Profense LLC, a Phoenix-based gatling-style machine gun manufacturer, has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $48,500, settling four allegations of breaching antiboycott regulations. B.E. Meyers & Co, Inc., a photonics defense contractor in Redmond, WA, will pay $44,750, settling three allegations  of similar offenses at the same venue in Bahrain. [10770]

• In June 2024, Airbus DS Government Solutions Inc. (ADSGS), a satellite communications and networking systems company located in Plano, Texas paid a $44,750 fine for trade show displays shipped to Kuwait [12324]

• Last November BIS fined Forta LLC , a manufacturer of synthetic reinforcement fibers for the same offense when it participated in a construction materials trade show in Abu Dhabi in 2019. [11377]