Beijing this week announced a host of new export license requirements for shipments of rare earths, superhard materials and related equipment, including new rules to restrict overseas exports if they contain certain levels of Chinese-origin materials. The country’s Ministry of Commerce also added more than a dozen companies to its Unreliable Entity List for arms sales to Taiwan or for other actions that it said hurt Chinese companies or the country’s “sovereignty” or security.

The Bureau of Industry and Security added 29 entities to the Entity List, including three addresses, for either helping to illegally supply U.S.-origin items to Iran or for their ties to Iranian procurement networks, BIS said in a final rule released and effective Oct. 8. BIS said the entities supplied or diverted aircraft parts, drone components, electronic items and other products to Iran, including to Iranian companies already on the Entity List or the Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals List.

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U.S. and allied export controls have failed to stop China from buying “vast quantities of highly sophisticated” semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) it could use to advance its chipmaking capabilities and bolster its military and surveillance apparatus, the House Select Committee on China said in a new report Oct. 7.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Sept. 29 upheld the Office of Foreign Assets Control's addition of Iranian company Bahman Group to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list. Judge Randolph Moss held that OFAC's denial of Bahman's delisting petition wasn't impermissibly predetermined, finding that even if OFAC's decision could be set aside under the Administrative Procedure Act for being pre-decided, "the record offers no basis for concluding that OFAC’s decision-making in this case was pretextual or irredeemably biased under any standard" (Bahman Group v. Lisa Palluconi, D.D.C. # 22-3826).

Export controls are likely to continue to be on the negotiating table during upcoming U.S.-China trade talks, panelists said this week.

Applied Materials, the largest American semiconductor equipment supplier, is projecting hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to its China-related revenue because of the Bureau of Industry and Security's new Affiliates Rule.

Exporters shouldn't expect a grace period from enforcement under the Bureau of Industry and Security's new 50% rule, but the agency likely is first looking for intentional violators as opposed to exporters who made good-faith efforts to comply, industry lawyers and advisers said in interviews.

The U.S. ambassador to NATO suggested this week that the Trump administration won’t sign off on any new Russia sanctions until all EU and NATO members stop buying Russian energy.

Although the Bureau of Industry and Security in FAQs this week suggested its new 50% rule applies only to ownership and not the control that a parent company may have over an affiliate, that doesn’t mean U.S. exporters should ignore an Entity Listed company’s controlling influence over an unlisted company, said Mike Huneke, a trade lawyer with Morgan Lewis.