Gun Sellers Fail to Prove They Were Unlawfully Debarred by DDTC, Court Says

A pair of U.S. and South African weapon sellers failed to show that the State Department illegally debarred them from exporting goods, a U.S. court said Oct. 26. The court’s decision stemmed from a lawsuit filed by U.S. weapons exporter Robert Thorne and South African gun reseller Dave Sheer and his businesses, who said they were “de facto debarred” from trading weapons by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls despite not being placed on a debarment list.

While Thorne and Sheer presented evidence that they were denied some export licenses, the court said they did not prove that DDTC “completely prohibited” them from all activities subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Arms Export Control Act. The court also said they did not prove that DDTC “improperly imposed” a presumption of denial on their license applications.

DDTC denied 14 license applications for Thorne in 2018 because of “administrative deficiencies” and because the end-user -- one of Sheer’s businesses -- was an “unreliable recipient” of U.S. defense goods, the court said. DDTC subsequently “instructed” third parties to not sell arms to Sheer’s business and flagged them in the agency’s database. Even so, Sheer and Thorne failed to show that DDTC’s actions “would permanently deprive” them “of any chance to obtain a license under the AECA.” Thorne also did not formally ask DDTC to reconsider his application, the court said, “which would probably have shed greater light on his ITAR and AECA status.”

“Plaintiffs have not pleaded sufficient facts or provided sufficient evidence of a nefariously imposed complete prohibition on their legal engagement in ITAR and AECA activities,” the court said.