Dutch chip equipment maker ASML isn’t expecting to receive export licenses this year to ship several of its deep ultraviolet immersion lithography systems to China, along with one older DUV tool not previously disclosed by the company.
The U.S. and the EU are making progress on more closely aligning their encryption-related export controls, a senior Bureau of Industry and Security official said last week, along with differences in export licensing and classification.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will likely issue more penalty announcements this year for export control violations, a former senior BIS enforcement official said, suggesting the current state of enforcement is unprecedented.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is preparing to announce more “significant” export penalties and corporate resolutions this year, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. He also said exporters should see more export-related indictments as part of a joint effort with DOJ, and he continued to pitch a BIS funding boost, which would help it hire more export enforcement agents.
The Bureau of Industry and Security has been experiencing delays in semiconductor-related export license applications due to a higher number of disagreements with the other agencies that also review those licenses, a senior BIS official said this week.
Companies should avoid internal policies that require them to disclose all potential sanctions and export control violations to the government, lawyers with Foley Hoag said this week. Although it may seem like a sound compliance policy, the lawyers said that language can backfire, including in cases where a voluntary disclosure may not be the best option.
Companies should expect the Bureau of Industry and Security to announce new export controls this year restricting certain U.S. person activities involving military and military intelligence end uses and end users, a former BIS official said.
The European Commission this week released a package of proposals that could lead to new restrictions for a host of transactions involving dual-use technologies, including by expanding the bloc’s screening of inbound investments, improving export control coordination among member states and studying the possibility of new outbound investment restrictions.
The two authors of a bipartisan bill to boost U.S. technology competitiveness were lukewarm this week about the prospect of allocating more export control resources to the Commerce Department and stopped short of promising it more money, with one calling on the agency to be more efficient with what it has. And while they said they support Commerce’s updated China-related semiconductor export controls, they also said the U.S. should devote as much attention to expanding trade with close allies as it does to restricting trade with adversaries.
The U.S. likely will face challenges trying to place export controls on RISC-V, an open-source semiconductor architecture that policymakers fear China may use to evade export restrictions and leapfrog their U.S. competitors, Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology said this week.