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.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
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.
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.
EU member states on Oct. 3 voted to approve new countervailing duties on Chinese electric vehicles (see 2408200020) despite lobbying from Beijing and opposition from some member states, including Germany (see 2410030028). The new duties, "including the definitive findings" of the EU's CVD probe, must be published in the Official Journal of the EU by Oct. 30, the European Commission said.
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.
The U.K.’s financial oversight agency fined Starling Bank nearly 28 million pounds, or almost $40 million, for a “shockingly lax” set of screening controls that led it to onboard thousands of “high-risk” customers with possible ties to sanctions.