BIS Official Says Updated Chip Controls Coming in October, Mum on Authorization Renewals

LONDON -- The Bureau of Industry and Security hopes to publish the final version of its Oct. 7 China chip controls in October, said Liz Abraham, senior adviser for international policy at BIS.

Abraham, speaking during a Sept. 28 defense industry conference in London hosted by SAE Media, said the agency is next month “expecting updates” to the restrictions, which were issued as an interim final rule last year and placed new license requirements on a range of semiconductor-related exports and activities involving China (see 2210070049). She didn’t say what specific changes the rule will make and declined to say whether the agency will renew the one-year authorizations it gave to certain chip companies last October.

Abraham’s comments came after South Korea-based Yonhap news agency reported the Commerce Department plans to indefinitely renew the chip-related authorizations for South Korean semiconductor companies Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. The licenses allow them to continue certain chip operations in China and avoid business disruptions caused by the new export controls (see 2210310044 and 2210120002). A BIS official earlier this year said the agency was speaking to the companies about potentially extending the authorizations (see 2302240008).

Abraham said BIS is “very, very cognizant of what partner countries and allies and industry is facing in relation to our controls, and what happens after Oct. 7 and U.S. persons in those companies and trade flows in that space.” She was specifically asked how BIS will handle potentially renewing those authorizations, and others, if Congress can’t agree to a government funding deal and a shutdown begins Oct. 1.

“We are looking to mitigate as much as possible,” Abraham said. “So I know that there are people looking at those issues and I expect them to find ways to be able to address this.”

Andre Hermsen, chief compliance officer for Dutch chip manufacturing equipment company ASML, said later during the conference that he has “been in discussions” with BIS since March "where they've been promising us that it will be within the next couple of weeks that they will publish the regulations. So we'll have to see what actually happens.”

He added: “What Liz said is probably true, but we’ll have to see.”