The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York this month denied a request from Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies Co. to help the company obtain access to certain discovery documents that are restricted by the Bureau of Industry and Security. Judge Cheryl Pollak said that while DOJ marked hundreds of thousands of documents at a lower level of classification than BIS, which would give Huawei greater access to the records, the documents are "still subject to further review by BIS" (United States v. Huawei Technologies, E.D.N.Y. # 18-00457).
Exports to China
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company is expected to begin suspending production of AI chips at advanced process nodes of 7 nanometers for its Chinese customers beginning Nov. 11, the Financial Times reported last week.
The leaders of the House Select Committee on China asked five large semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) firms Nov. 7 to provide data about their China sales, saying the information would help lawmakers better understand the “flow of SME” to the Asian country and its contribution to China’s “rapid buildout of its semiconductor manufacturing industrial base.”
U.S. mobile phone parts producer Lumentum is under investigation by the Bureau of Industry and Security and DOJ for potentially violating U.S. export controls against Huawei, according to corporate filings.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined multinational chip maker GlobalFoundries $500,000 after it illegally exported semiconductor wafers to a Entity Listed firm with ties to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s flagship chip manufacturing company.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit rejected an argument from a Chinese engineering professor who said his illegal export shouldn't have been subject to national security controls, which made the export subject to a higher base offense (U.S. v. Yi-Chi Shih, 9th Cir. # 23-3718).
The U.S. this week unveiled new trade and financial restrictions against people and companies across more than 17 countries for helping Russia evade sanctions or for supporting the country’s military, adding nearly 400 to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list and more than 40 to the Commerce Department’s Entity List. Another move by Commerce will tighten existing controls on nearly 50 entities that it said are procuring U.S.-branded microelectronics for Russia.
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.
Western nations imposing export controls against Russia should shift their focus away from microchips and instead prioritize the key raw materials and machine tools that Moscow needs for its artillery, according to a report this month from the U.K-based Royal United Services Institute and Open Source Centre. The report calls for more enforcement against Chinese machine tool suppliers and new, “strict sanctions” against companies shipping materials like chrome ore that Russia uses for its weapons.
China’s Ministry of Commerce criticized a decision by the U.S. earlier this month to sanction two Chinese firms for helping to make drones for Russia (see 2410170011), saying the designations have “no basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council.” The ministry also said China doesn’t allow its businesses to sell drone parts for use by Russia’s military and has recently strengthened export inspections to stop those shipments.