Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Feb. 24-28 in case you missed them.

The United Kingdom government emphasized that its National Health Service will not pay more for drugs as a result of a U.S.-United Kingdom free trade deal, and that Britain “will not compromise on our high environmental protection, animal welfare and food standards.” The latter seems to be a reference to sanitary standards that frustrate U.S. exporters, such as a ban on anti-bacterial washes of chicken. The government issued its negotiating objectives and an analysis of the economic benefit to the U.K. of a free trade deal in the March 2 document.

The U.S. should lobby for increased export controls and more stringent sanctions regimes relating to weapons proliferation at the upcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference, arms control experts said during a March 3 House hearing. While it may be difficult for all treaty members to sign off on a broad consensus document relating to non-proliferation, the U.S. should use the spring conference in New York to seek common ground on controls of items used to produce dangerous weapons.

Companies looking to comply with U.S. sanctions should use screening programs from trusted third parties instead of trying to build their own, according to Brian Grant, head of global compliance of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. The need for companies to have robust compliance programs has grown “significantly” over the last several years, he said, and using screening software and procedures from experienced companies creates less risk.

Companies should ensure their data is fully encrypted with no access by third parties before using the new encryption carve-out in the upcoming amendments to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, according to a cybersecurity compliance expert and a trade lawyer. Although they lauded the ITAR for recognizing that some technology, such as encryption, can protect transfers of export controlled data, both said complying fully with the carve-out may be complicated. “There is a wrong way to do the end-to-end encryption, so you need to be very careful when applying it,” said Alex Major, a cybersecurity and trade lawyer with McCarter & English, speaking during a Feb. 27 webinar hosted by the Massachusetts Export Center.

While it is too soon to tell whether recent U.S. reforms of foreign direct investment screening will prove successful, the regulations introduced novel provisions to incentivize improved global investment screening, according to a former investment screening counsel for the Treasury Department. The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (see 2001140060) also appears to fill many of the gaps encountered by previous U.S. investment screening efforts, said Anne Salladin, a Hogan Lovells lawyer and former senior counsel to the chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.

A lawsuit filed by 20 states to block the transfer of export controls over firearms from the State Department to the Commerce Department is unfounded, the State Department said, adding that the states don’t understand the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Export Administration Regulations. The “plaintiffs are simply wrong,” the State Department said in a Feb. 24 court filing. “Several basic misunderstandings about how the respective regimes operate negate the Plaintiffs’ claims and any basis for preliminary injunctive relief.”

U.S. administration officials will meet with the European Union and Japan next month to lobby for increased scrutiny of transactions involving sensitive technologies, a top Treasury Department official said. The meetings will also feature discussions of recent U.S. reforms to foreign direct investment screening, said Thomas Feddo, Treasury’s assistant secretary of investment security, and come as the U.S. begins to implement those reforms as part of the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (see 2001140060). Feddo spoke during a Feb. 26 event hosted by the Asia Society.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Feb. 18-21 in case you missed them.

China has taken “numerous actions” to begin implementing its agricultural purchase commitments under the U.S-China phase one trade deal, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said Feb. 25. China recently announced it will allow imports of U.S. “fresh chipping potatoes” (see 2002240011), lifted an import ban on U.S. poultry and poultry products (see 1911140019) and lifted restrictions on certain pet food imports (see 2002240010) from the U.S. China also updated its list of facilities approved for exporting animal protein, pet food, dairy, infant formula and tallow, updated the list of goods that can be exported to China as feed additives and updated an approved list of imported U.S. seafood species.