The Bureau of Industry and Security this week updated its restricted aircraft list by adding three Iranian-owned and operated planes for violating U.S. export controls after they provided flight services to Russia. The planes -- owned by Mahan Air, Qeshm Fars Air and Iran Air -- are the first Iranian aircraft added to the list and are now subject to certain maintenance and repair restrictions and other prohibitions outlined in General Prohibition 10 of the Export Administration Regulations.
A Bureau of Industry and Security official last week confirmed the agency sent letters to specific companies restricting their ability to export certain artificial intelligence-related chips to China, and said more restrictions may be coming. In the agency’s first public comments on the matter, Thea Kendler, BIS’s assistant secretary for export administration, said the agency hopes the letters help inform industry about the types of exports the agency is scrutinizing.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is on pace to detain almost as many exports to Russia this year as the agency detained in 2021 for the entire world, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. In the six months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he said, the U.S. has detained nearly 240 shipments to Russia worth more than $93 million.
President Joe Biden this week signed the first executive order to give specific presidential direction to how the U.S. conducts foreign direct investment reviews, a move officials hope will sharpen the country's focus on sensitive technologies, personal data and other national security-related issues.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week announced a host of measures to expand its export restrictions against Russia and Belarus, including an expansion of its Russian industry sector sanctions to add new export controls on lower-level items. The agency also expanded its military and military intelligence end-user controls, applied its Russian-Belarusian MEU foreign direct product rule to additional entities, added additional dollar value exclusion thresholds for certain luxury goods exports and more.
The State Department is prioritizing work on several new rules to amend the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, including updates to multiple U.S. Munitions List categories and revisions to the agency’s exempted technologies list (ETL), an agency official said this week.
While the Biden administration hasn't yet decided whether to establish an outbound investment screening regime, officials believe more investment screening could help fill certain gaps in semiconductor-related export controls, said Peter Harrell, a National Security Council official. Harrell said an outbound regime also could provide the U.S. with more information about global semiconductor investments, which could be useful as the U.S. seeks to stop China from acquiring advanced chip equipment.
The Federal Maritime Commission will soon seek public comments on the set of factors it should consider when determining whether an ocean carrier is violating shipping regulations by refusing vessel space to shippers. The effort, outlined in a notice of proposed rulemaking required by the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, also seeks to define certain “unreasonable” conduct by ocean carriers, specifically their “unreasonable refusal to deal or negotiate with respect to vessel space accommodation,” FMC said. The commission will accept comments up to 30 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.
After several years of delays, Commerce Department officials said industry may soon see progress on the agency’s long-awaited routed export rule. Although the rule is unlikely to be published this year, officials this week said they are hoping to prioritize the effort in the coming months, which could include major changes to the process around assigning filing responsibilities to forwarders and address information sharing among parties in routed export transactions (see 2006020049).
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments on potential export controls over certain instruments for the automated synthesis of peptides, the agency said in an advance notice of proposed rulemaking this week. The agency, which has been drafting the ANPRM since at least June (see 2206270007 and 2208290019), said automated peptide synthesizers may warrant export restrictions as foundational or emerging technologies because of their potential impact on American national security. Comments are due Oct. 28.