The U.S. partnered with Singapore and Japan to host a virtual trade industry outreach seminar this week, where they discussed emerging technology exports, sanctions compliance and more, the Bureau of Industry and Security said. The ninth annual Joint Industry Outreach seminar, which featured officials from the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, Philippines and Malaysia, included discussions on the intersection of export controls and sanctions, controlling emerging technologies, cyber-threats to export-controlled data, intangible transfers of technology and intellectual property, export controls for academic and research environments, and tools for internal compliance planning, BIS said. The agency said the seminar, held Sept. 28-29, allowed governments and industry to share best practices and review recent export control updates.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week completed an interagency review for a final rule that would expand export controls on certain biological equipment software. The rule, received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Sept. 13 (see 2109140011) and completed Sept. 28, would control software “for the operation of automated nucleic acid assemblers and synthesizers” that are “capable of designing and building functional genetic elements from digital sequence data.”
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for Sept. 20-24 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined a Texas semiconductor component manufacturer nearly $500,000 for illegally exporting controlled wafers to Russia via Bulgaria (see 2012210013), the agency said in a Sept. 28 order. The company, Silicon Space Technology Corporation, which began doing business as Vorago Technologies in 2015, worked with a Russian engineering firm to export “rad-hard 16MB Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) wafers,” which were controlled under the Export Administration Regulations for spacecraft and related components.
The Bureau of Industry and Security completed its review of a final rule that would control exports of certain types of deuterium under the Export Administration Regulations. The rule, received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs June 16 (see 2106240004) and completed Sept. 23, would control deuterium exports “intended for use other than in a nuclear reactor,” BIS said. The agency said the rule will transfer the responsibility for controlling those exports from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to BIS.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking information on the chip sector and the semiconductor supply chain, including sales statistics, production and inventory information, and bottleneck issues, the agency said in a notice. The comments will help the Commerce Department gather information on issues in the semiconductor industry, which was mandated in a February executive order (see 2102240068 and 2107280051).
Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, recently offered several amendments to the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, including provisions relating to export control statistics, the Entity List and sanctions.
Several U.S. national security agencies are split on whether to add Chinese smartphone maker Honor Device to the Entity List, The Washington Post reported Sept. 19. While the Commerce and State departments said Honor shouldn't be added to the list, the Defense and Energy departments last week supported adding the company. Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr said Honor should be blacklisted because Huawei, which formerly owned Honor as its smartphone company, is using it to evade U.S. export restrictions. “This isn't a close call,” Carr said in a Sept. 20 tweet. The issue has been “appealed to the political-appointee level” at each of the agencies, the report said, and could be escalated to the Cabinet level and eventually President Joe Biden in the case of a deadlock.
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Two nominees to lead the Bureau of Industry and Security said they will prioritize stopping illegal technology exports to China and are willing to bypass multilateral controls on certain sensitive technologies if unilateral restrictions are warranted. But Alan Estevez, President Joe Biden’s nominee for BIS undersecretary, and Thea Kendler, the nominee for assistant secretary for export administration, also stressed that export control cooperation with allies is crucial and committed to working to convince trade partners to adopt more controls.