The Biden administration should reverse a 2020 rule that transferred export controls over certain defense items from the State Department to the Commerce Department (see 2001170030), said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. She said the transfer has allowed the U.S. to approve more weapons sales overseas, contributing to violent crime and corruption.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is conducting a review of the types of semiconductors and chipmaking equipment that can be exported to China to determine whether it needs to tighten those restrictions, BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez said, speaking during a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week. He said the agency is considering tightening the “cut-off point” of semiconductors that are subject to strict export licensing requirements.
Ongoing labor negotiations between West Coast ports and their dockworkers’ union are unlikely to cause major disruptions, said David Bennett, chief commercial officer of Farrow, a customs broker and logistics provider. But that doesn’t mean shippers should expect the negotiations to wrap up anytime soon. “I don't think we'll have a contract before September, to be honest with you,” Bennett said during a July 14 webinar hosted by the Journal of Commerce.
A potential provision in the bipartisan China package (see 2207120049) that would create an outbound investment screening mechanism received more opposition (see 2206280051 and 2201140038) this week, including from lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee and former U.S. investment screening officials. While opponents of the provision say some form of outbound screening may eventually be necessary to further restrict sensitive technology transfers to China, they also said the current wording is too broad and leaves too many questions unanswered.
Customers and borrowers of financial institutions may start to receive more requests from banks about their export control compliance practices due to a recently issued joint alert by the Treasury and Commerce departments, Crowell & Moring said July 13. The alert also has other implications for customers of certain financial institutions, the firm said, and could hurt their ability to receive lenient penalties from a voluntary disclosure.
The EU is ramping up efforts to monitor Russia-related export control evasion and hopes to soon make more progress on sanctions enforcement within the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, said Sabine Weyand, the European Commission’s director general for trade, speaking during a July 13 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She expects EU enforcement to soon pick up because many of the bloc’s wind-down periods for the restrictions are ending.
TradeStation Group, the U.S.-based parent company of an online securities and brokerage firm, said it may have violated U.S. sanctions. The company on June 29 submitted a voluntary self-disclosure to the Office of Foreign Assets Control after discovering its platform may have been accessed from a sanctioned country or by a sanctioned entity or person, TradeStation said in a July 1 SEC filing. The disclosure included information on a “nominal percentage of its customers’ compliance with OFAC’s comprehensive territorial-based sanctions,” the company said.
The U.S. will ramp up sanctions pressure against Iran if it doesn’t return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, said Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser. Sullivan also said Iran is preparing to send weapons technology to Russia in violation of international export controls.
Some of the Federal Maritime Commission’s proposed changes to its rules for Carrier Automated Tariffs (see 2205090006) are unnecessary and could place too heavy a burden on industry, two trade groups and a logistics company said in comments this month. The commenters were especially critical of a proposed change that would add more requirements to container documentation, and said they wouldn't support a proposal that would allow a non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) to cross-reference the terms in a vessel-operating common carrier’s (VOCC) tariffs.
A U.S. appeals court on July 8 affirmed a 2020 District of Columbia court ruling dismissing FedEx’s lawsuit against the Bureau of Industry and Security, saying the shipping company failed to show BIS acted outside its authority. The court also rejected FedEx’s claims that the agency was using the Export Administration Regulations to apply overly burdensome liability standards on carriers and penalize them even when carriers do not have knowledge of violations.