Rep. Andy Kim, D-N.J., one of the less hawkish members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, bemoaned the fact that the original title of the committee, which talked about strategic competition, has been forgotten.
If the Treasury Department doesn't clarify the due-diligence steps that will be required of dealmakers under the agency’s upcoming outbound investment prohibitions, the Biden administration risks chilling a broad range of U.S ventures in China and incentivizing foreign companies to seek funds elsewhere, law firms and industry associations said in comments to the agency.
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 49 entities, mostly from China, to the Entity List for shipping microelectronics to Russian consignees connected to the country’s defense sector. The entities are semiconductor companies, technology businesses, logistics companies and others, and also include companies based in Estonia, Finland, Germany, India, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the U.K.
The EU this week issued 11 new frequently asked questions to provide importers more guidance on its trade restrictions for iron and steel products made with Russian inputs. The FAQs provide more guidance on conducting due diligence on iron and steel products processed in third countries with inputs from Russia, whether the restrictions apply to temporary imports, country of origin documentation requirements.
The World Trade Organization will host a virtual event Oct. 11 at 7 a.m. EDT covering trade-facilitating measures pertaining to product rules of origin. Tanzania's Elia Mtweve, current chair of the Committee on Rules of Origin, will open the event, which will discuss "initiatives being implemented to simplify rules of origin and facilitate compliance with origin requirements," WTO announced. Also speaking will be WTO member government representatives, international organization officials and academics.
The U.K. issued a General License Sept. 29 under its Russia sanctions regime to provide certainty that a credit or financial institution can return a payment to another such institution which has been processed by a sanctioned credit or financial institution at some point in the payment chain. The license applies when the sanctioned party acted as an original, correspondent or intermediary institution where the recipient institution and the institution that sent the payment are not designated parties, and the original account holder and the original intended recipient are not sanctioned parties. The license expires at the end of the day on Dec. 1.
LONDON -- The State Department hasn’t yet seen much participation in its open general license pilot program despite releasing the licenses more than a year ago, said Catherine Hamilton, the licensing director for the agency’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. Hamilton said the licenses specifically aren’t “really being used in the U.K. as we had envisioned.”
A bipartisan group of 72 House members and 22 senators is asking the Biden administration to use the Magnitsky Act to hold Azerbaijani officials accountable for what they called "the ongoing human rights crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh."
The Bureau of Industry and Security added 28 entities to the Entity List this week for various reasons, all falling under the umbrella of “acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.” The final rule, effective Sept. 27, adds entities in China, Finland, Germany, Oman, Pakistan, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. It also modifies entries for two entities and removes a Military End User List entity.
DOJ's lawsuit against SpaceX looking into whether the space exploration firm wrongly relied on export control laws to justify its alleged hiring discrimination is unconstitutional, the company said in a Sept. 15 complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. The company also defended its hiring practices in its complaint, telling the court that it risks “severe consequences” for violating the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.