In their first official statements at the Bureau of Industry and Security, the agency’s two newest export control officials singled out China and Russia and said they plan to prioritize enforcement work involving human rights.
The Bureau of Industry and Security extended the comment period for an information collection relating to transfers of export licenses, the agency said in a notice. Export licenses can be transferred under “certain circumstances,” the agency said, such as company mergers or takeovers that “necessitate the transfer of an active export license from one party to another.” Comments were previously due Dec. 20 (see 2110180009), but BIS said it will allow for an additional 30 days. Comments are now due by Feb. 7.
Thea Kendler, President Joe Biden’s choice to be the Bureau of Industry and Security's assistant secretary for export administration, was officially sworn in to her position, BIS said this week. The agency said Kendler will lead Export Administration’s “highly trained technical professionals” in controlling dual-use and military exports, analyzing the impact of those export controls and supporting the U.S. defense industrial base. She also will chair the Advisory Committee on Export Policy, which resolves interagency policy disputes on export license applications submitted to BIS. The Senate confirmed Kendler in December (see 2112150009).
The Bureau of Industry and Security again renewed its temporary export control on certain artificial intelligence software as it prepares to make the classification permanent, BIS said in a notice. The temporary control -- first issued in January 2020 (see 2001030024), extended last year (see 2101050018) and renewed for a second time this week -- placed unilateral restrictions on geospatial imagery software by adding it to the 0Y521 Temporary Export Control Classification Numbers Series. The latest one-year renewal is effective Jan. 6.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top 20 stories published in 2021 in case they were missed. All articles can be found by searching on the titles or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference numbers.
The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a proposed rule this week that would require U.S. industry to shift from manual to electronic reporting for certain civil nuclear fuel cycle-related activities. The rule, released Dec. 28, would specifically amend BIS’s Additional Protocol (AP) regulations -- an agreement between the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency -- by replacing the existing manual reporting and processing procedures with a requirement to submit reports online through the Additional Protocol Reporting System (APRS).
Rockley Photonics, a California photonics-based health monitoring and communications solutions company, won’t follow through with a sale to Hengtong, a Chinese power and fiber optic cable manufacturer, following Hengtong's addition to the U.S. Entity List this month. Rockley suggested the sale, which it described as a “data-communications-related technical sale,” could be subject to the Export Administration Regulations and require a Bureau of Industry and Security license.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week released Spanish-language versions of two export compliance documents to make its materials “more accessible” to those whose primary language is Spanish. The documents are BIS’s Elementos de un ECP (Elements of an Export Compliance Program) and Directrices de Cumplimiento Para Las Exportaciones (Export Compliance Guidelines). The agency said Spanish is the second-most-frequently spoken language in the U.S. And even though a “disproportionately small number” of minority-owned businesses are exporters, “those that do export benefit more from exporting, as a percentage of receipts, when compared to nonminority-owned exporting firms,” BIS said. The agency said it hopes the translated guidance helps to “grow participation and diversity in the export economy by providing resources to help encourage more minority business enterprises to export their products.”
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories from last week in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.