Suspicious activity reports recently filed with the U.S. government show nearly $1 billion worth of transactions over the last year may have had ties to Russia-related export control evasion, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said in a new report analyzing SAR trend data. The report -- issued as part of a joint effort between FinCen and the Bureau of Industry and Security to collect more leads for export enforcement agents -- highlights several evasion trends being reported by banks and other financial institutions, including what types of goods are most commonly being sought by sanctions evaders and which foreign countries those transactions most frequently involve.
The U.S. shouldn’t be targeting American companies that exclude foreign applicants for job openings if those policies are meant to protect American sensitive technologies, Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said in a letter to DOJ. Vance’s letter came after DOJ in recent enforcement actions targeted both SpaceX and General Motors for using export control laws to justify restrictive hiring practices, highlighting the risks facing companies looking to fill positions that involve export-controlled items, Barnes & Thornburg said in a recent client alert.
Although the office of the U.S. Representative has already received nearly 1,500 comments on "worker-centered trade," the office has re-opened comments that closed Aug. 11. It is now accepting ideas on trade policies and actions to advance racial and gender equity, advance equity for rural communities or other underserved categories, as well as ideas on how to advance these values through stakeholder engagement.
China and Nicaragua signed a free trade agreement Aug. 31, China's Ministry of Commerce announced, according to an unofficial translation. Negotiations on the deal began in July 2022 and were concluded within a year, the ministry said, adding that the agreement will allow for a "mutual opening up" in trade in goods and services and investment market access.
U.S. rice exports to Costa Rica have “plummeted” following Costa Rica’s decision a year ago to reduce tariffs on rice from all origins, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in an Aug. 25 report. The agency said American rice exports to Costa Rica fell 98% through June since the tariff reduction, adding that as “tariffs on South American-origin rice fell to 5 percent in August 2022, purchases of U.S. rice all but stopped."
Connecticut-based electronics manufacturer Hubbell Inc. accused freight forwarder DSV of violating U.S. shipping regulations by failing to provide the required service under a negotiated contract, Hubbell said in an Aug. 28 complaint to the Federal Maritime Commission. The manufacturer also accused DSV, headquartered in Denmark, of assessing $900,000 in overbilled or “improper” charges.
The Bureau of Industry and Security this week released a second correction to its final rule earlier this month that expanded the scope of its nuclear-related export controls on China and Macau (see 2308110019). The correction fixes the Commerce Country Chart that was included in the original final rule. BIS also made a fix to the rule Aug. 17, correcting an "inadvertent error” in the rule’s “regulatory instructions” (see 2308170064).
Taiwan is requiring a certificate of origin and customs approval before certain Chinese-origin chipmaking equipment can be shipped to the U.S. The requirement will apply to shipments of certain “machine tools operated by laser processes, of a kind used solely or principally for the manufacture of printed circuits, printed circuit assemblies, parts” or “parts of automatic data processing machines,” Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade announced this month.
British semiconductor company Arm, in its initial U.S. public offering this week, said it’s facing uncertainty from U.S. and U.K. export controls and doesn’t expect to receive an export license to ship certain high performance processor cores to China. The company also said it’s expecting to see slower growth in its China sales revenue due to several factors, including various government-imposed “trade and national security policies.”
Sri Lanka recently relaxed import restrictions on certain genetically engineered food, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service said in a report last week. The country will require traders to secure import approvals for all GE foods or materials that contain more than 0.9% genetically modified organisms, the report said. Sri Lanka had previously required import approvals for foods containing more than 0.5% genetically modified organisms. The change is expected to help “facilitate exports of U.S.-origin non-GE soybean and non-GE corn (maize) or any other agricultural or food product, as they can now be imported without prior approval,” the report said.