China took a “few positive steps” to revise the draft of its export control law (see 2001100047) but should address several key areas of concern for U.S. and Chinese companies, the U.S. China Business Council said in comments released this week. The USCBC asked China to clarify the scope of its export controls and the term “national security,” provide a clearer definition for activities that are “deemed exports,” and consider more relaxed requirements for end-user statements and certificates.
The Commerce Department still does not have a timeline for releasing its next set of controls on emerging technologies and its advance notice of proposed rulemaking for foundational technologies, despite expectations from top officials that both would be published before 2020, a Bureau of Industry and Security official said. “I would have thought that they would be out earlier,” said Hillary Hess, director of BIS’s regulatory policy division, speaking during a Feb. 4 Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee meeting. “I think everybody would like to see them come out, but I’m not sure how long it’s going to take. I’m having trouble getting a bead on it myself.”
As the coronavirus outbreak disrupts supply chains, U.S. agricultural exporters are unsure when normal cargo processing will resume and are concerned about penalties from ocean freight carriers, according to a Feb. 3 open letter to ocean carriers by Agriculture Transportation Coalition Executive Director Peter Friedmann.
Although the Defense Department reportedly objected to a proposed Commerce Department rule that would have further restricted foreign sales to Huawei that contain U.S. goods (see 2001240012), the administration will continue considering other ways to increase controls on shipments to Huawei, which may include a “compromise” rule, according to a Jan. 31 research report from Raymond James & Associates. Political support for the proposed rule, including by three senators in a January letter (see 2001270026), may “convince” the Defense Department to “ease its opposition in some form.” If the agency concedes, it will still likely push back on other restrictions on China's technology industry “to preserve some of the revenue stream to the U.S. industrial base,” the report said.
Airbus agreed to pay more than $3.9 billion in combined penalties for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, the Justice Department said Jan. 31. The bribery charges, levied by U.S., French and United Kingdom authorities, stem from Airbus’s scheme to bribe non-governmental airline executives and government officials, including officials in China, to retain aircraft contracts.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is becoming progressively worse at addressing specific sanctions questions from industry stakeholders, leaving queries unanswered and causing companies to hesitate before completing transactions, according to Nixon Peabody trade lawyer Alexandra Lopez-Casero. Companies can employ certain strategies to get responses from OFAC, Lopez-Casero said, but OFAC is typically not as responsive and helpful as other agencies, such as the Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security.
The first humanitarian exports were sent through the joint mechanism created by the Treasury and State departments nearly three months after the channel was created (see 1910250057), Treasury said Jan. 30. Treasury said the mechanism successfully facilitated transactions from a “humanitarian channel” in Switzerland that sent cancer and transplant-related drugs to Iranian medical patients. The channel is subject to “strict due diligence measures,” Treasury said, adding that the successful transactions prove “a model for facilitating further humanitarian exports to Iran.”
The many complicated “provisions” for implementing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on free trade plausibly means July 1 is the “absolute earliest” date it can “enter into force,” Nicole Bivens Collinson, international trade expert with Sandler, Travis, told a Sports & Fitness Industry Association webinar Jan. 29. President Donald Trump signed USMCA’s enabling legislation into law on Jan. 29 (see 2001290035), saying the agreement “contains critical protections for intellectual property, including trade secrets, digital services and financial services.”
The Commerce Department again postponed the first meeting of its Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee and may not reschedule it until March, a Commerce official said. The meeting, which was originally scheduled for Dec. 4, 2019,was initially postponed to January as the agency faced delays in issuing members their security clearances (see 1911200045). But the problem persisted, according to Anita Zinzuvadia, a licensing officer with the Bureau of Industry and Security, who said Commerce canceled the January meeting.
Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with some of the top stories for Jan. 21-24 in case you missed them.