The U.K. this week ordered a subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology to divest from Britain's largest microchip facility, Nexperia Newport (formerly Newport Wafer Lab), several months after U.S. lawmakers urged the Biden administration to intervene in the acquisition. The U.K.’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s decision will force Wingtech’s subsidiary, Netherlands-based Nexperia, to sell at least 86% of its stake in Nexperia Newport “within a specified period and by following a specified process.” Nexperia acquired the stake in then Newport Wafer Lab in 2021.
Exports to China
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 for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Congress should create a new, “permanent” committee in the executive branch tasked with planning sanctions against China under “a range of possible scenarios,” including if it invades Taiwan, a congressional commission said this week. The bipartisan commission also said the Commerce Department should provide Congress with regular enforcement and licensing reports on certain China-related export control decisions and said the administration should create a new list of Chinese firms that should be subject to strict export licensing requirements.
U.S. and foreign companies “seem to be equally confused” by the Bureau of Industry and Security's new China chip export restrictions (see 2210070049), said Alison Stafford-Powell, a trade compliance lawyer with Baker McKenzie, speaking Nov. 15 during a virtual event hosted by the law firm. She called the new BIS rule “incredibly complex" and said industry needs more guidance from the agency.
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet in-person in Indonesia Nov. 14 to “discuss a range of regional and global issues,” the White House announced last week. The meeting will take place about a month after the U.S. announced new export licensing requirements designed to restrict China’s ability to acquire advanced computing chips and manufacture advanced semiconductors (see 2210070049).
Three U.S. citizens and Quadrant Magnetics were charged with wire fraud, violating the Arms Export Control Act and smuggling goods relating to their participation in an illegal scheme to ship export-controlled defense-related technical data to China, DOJ announced. They also allegedly supplied DOD with Chinese-origin rare earth magnets for aviation systems and military items, DOJ said.
The new U.S. chip controls against China (see 2210070049 and 2211010042) mark a “major escalation” in the U.S.-China technology war and will likely have a significant effect on China’s technology capabilities, Bank of America said this week. The bank also warned that the controls, which are “more comprehensive and stricter than what we have seen in the past,” could ultimately open the “door to more sweeping restrictions in other domains like leading edge manufacturing.”
U.S. semiconductor company Nvidia is offering a new advanced chip to Chinese customers that complies with the Commerce Department’s new export restrictions (see 2210070049), a company spokesperson said Nov. 8. The person said Nvidia's new A800 chip, which recently went into production, is designed to meet U.S. licensing requirements. "The NVIDIA A800 GPU, which went into production in Q3, is another alternative product to the NVIDIA A100 GPU for customers in China," the spokesperson said in a Nov. 8 email. "The A800 meets the U.S. Government’s clear test for reduced export control and cannot be programmed to exceed it." The spokesperson declined to say if Nvidia had confirmed with Commerce whether the chip complies with U.S. export regulations. Reuters first reported the new chip.
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 for the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
The Bureau of Industry and Security should avoid placing export controls on automated peptide synthesizers, U.S. companies said, arguing that the restrictions would hurt U.S. technological leadership and wouldn't do much to limit the proliferation of biological weapons. A Chinese national academy also opposed the controls, saying they could stifle global research and innovation.