The Department of Defense has agreed to a final order dropping the designation of Chinese consumer electronics giant Xiaomi Corporation as a Communist Chinese Military Company (CCMC), according to a May 11 joint status report filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Xiaomi supports the order, the report said, leaving the parties to negotiate over specifics before a final proposed order is to be submitted on or before May 20.

A U.S. district court judge dismissed a case involving the seizure of a multimillion-dollar jet after Texas officials failed to prove the jet violated export regulations or was involved in a money-laundering scheme. Texas police seized the British Aerospace BAE 125 Series jet last year on tax evasion and money-laundering charges and suggested the owners violated the Export Administration Regulations, but a judge said police had no evidence or probable cause.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for May 3-7 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

More than 50 Democrats urged the Biden administration to keep State Department export controls over 3D printed guns, saying their transfer to the Commerce Department is “profoundly dangerous” and will allow “anyone to build untraceable firearms on demand.” The lawmakers, led by Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Rep. Grace Meng of New York, urged the administration to “place strict regulatory controls” over the weapons and their technical data.

The European Council adopted new rules modernizing the European Union's system for export controls for dual-use civil and military items, the EC said in a May 10 news release. The regulations had been in talks for years but were finally agreed to Nov. 9 (see 2011100021). The regime includes stricter controls for cyber-surveillance technology that may be used for human rights abuses, new general export licenses to authorize shipments of cryptographic items and certain “intra-group technology transfers,” and mechanisms for greater coordination between members and with trading partners.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she plans to heavily enforce Entity List restrictions and more aggressively tackle the agency's emerging and foundational technology export control mandate. And although the agency’s review of China policies is ongoing (see 2101250049), she again stressed that Commerce doesn’t plan to remove export restrictions from Huawei and is looking for more companies to add to the Entity List.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for April 26-30 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching on the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

The Biden administration will likely build on the U.S.’s recently revised investment screening regulations by expanding the list of countries that qualify as excepted foreign states, trade lawyers said. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. currently only recognizes Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom as excepted states (see 2002270049) -- a designation that reduces the likelihood that CFIUS will heavily intervene in deals from those countries -- but could soon also recognize Japan, said Richard Sofield, a Wiley Rein trade lawyer.

U.S. exporters and forwarders are still unsure how much due diligence is enough to comply with the Commerce’s Department’s recently expanded end-user and end-use restrictions, National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America officials said. Although the Bureau of Industry and Security issued some guidance last year, the guidance didn't address all industry questions and was made more complicated by another set of restrictions that took effect this year, the officials said.

Shipping regulations should be revised to allow the Federal Maritime Commission to better address unfair detention and demurrage fees, agricultural export issues and a range of other shipping problems at U.S. ports, FMC Chair Daniel Maffei said. While he didn’t propose any concrete changes, he said he is “frustrated” with the situation at the nation’s ports and is speaking with Congress about potentially proposing regulatory changes. “I'm not prepared to go into any details now, but I do think that some things clearly need to be clarified,” Maffei said during a May 5 National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference. “There are many, many areas where the law is vague or so outdated because it simply was written mostly in the time of tariffs, and now it's mostly contracts.”