Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Senate Intelligence Committee vice chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., asked the Commerce Department Feb. 11 to explain why the Bureau of Industry and Security’s Office of Information and Communications Technology and Services (ICTS) has been experiencing the loss of key personnel and delays in several important efforts.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week fined semiconductor firm Applied Materials $252 million -- the second-largest penalty ever imposed by BIS -- after the company admitted to illegally exporting chip manufacturing equipment through its South Korean subsidiary to a Chinese company on the Entity List.
The Philippines launched a safeguard investigation on ceramic tiles on Feb. 5, the World Trade Organization said this week. Interested parties can submit their views on the proceedings to the nation's Bureau of Import Services within five days of the publication of the notice of investigation.
Three House Republicans from Florida urged the Trump administration Feb. 10 to review all active U.S. licenses authorizing commercial or financial dealings involving Cuba's government or state-owned enterprise and revoke those that benefit entities controlled by the island country's "brutal regime."
Recent U.S. moves to ease export license restrictions on advanced computing chips could lead to more enforcement opportunities for the government and increase compliance risks for exporters, Morrison Foerster said in a client alert this week.
It remains difficult to predict whether the Bureau of Industry and Security will actually reinstate its 50% rule when the one-year suspension ends later this year, although that doesn’t mean companies should stop preparing, industry officials said this week.
Eddy Aparicio, a senior trade and industry analyst with the Bureau of Industry and Security, is starting a new role as an acting division director at BIS, he announced Feb. 10 on LinkedIn. Since 2020, Aparicio has served as the BIS liaison to the Treasury Department, where he has provided export control input on the activities of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.
Anna Bruse, former acting director for the Bureau of Industry and Security's Office of Exporter Services and director of the agency's data analytics division, is starting a new role as director of the Office of Nonproliferation and Foreign Policy Controls, she announced on LinkedIn last week.
Longtime Bureau of Industry and Security official Sharron Cook is planning to retire soon from the agency, according to multiple people with knowledge of her plans. Cook, a senior BIS export policy analyst, has worked at BIS and the Commerce Department for close to four decades.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is seeking public comments for an information collection involving the Defense Priorities and Allocations System, according to a notice released Feb. 9. The system is used to prioritize national defense contracts and orders to support the U.S. military and, in some cases, provide military or critical infrastructure assistance to foreign nations. Comments are due by April 13.