On October 15, 2020, CFIUS will officially tie mandatory filings to U.S. export control regimes, including the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). While that change may draw a clearer line of what constitutes a mandatory filing, it also pulls your CFIUS review into the complex (and somewhat nerdy) world of export regulations.
Continue Reading Lend Me Your EARs: CFIUS Makes Export Controls a Trigger for Mandatory Filings
The U.S. Department of Commerce is considering tightening export controls in two major ways. The changes are aimed at choking off supplies to Huawei, but
Continue Reading Chasing Huawei: BIS May Change the Rules of the Game to Target One Player
“A free and open economy is the foundation of global peace and prosperity.”
– Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, G20 summit, June 2019.
On July 1, 2019, only few days after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe opened the G20 summit with a speech endorsing an open global economy, the Japanese government announced that it will impose tighter controls on technology-related exports from Japan to South Korea for reasons of national security. The controls may have a devastating effect on trade between the two countries and will create further drag on the world economy.
Continue Reading A Chinese Export License to Get a Smart Phone? Tech-Tonic Changes in World Export Controls
On May 16, 2019, a sweeping U.S. export control rule went into effect that will impact the U.S. tech industry, but may also create an outsized risk for non-U.S. manufacturers. The rule, issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) adds Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and 68 of its affiliates to the Entity List. That designation effectively prohibits the export, reexport, and retransfer of all U.S.-origin “items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR)” to those entities. The designation arises from a U.S. government finding that the restrictions are warranted on U.S. national security and foreign policy grounds.
Continue Reading Hua-Wait a Minute: Entity Designation Affects Non-U.S. Manufacturers’ Exports to China Tech Giant
Key Takeaways:
Export controls and other regulations often lag a step or two behind the times. That trend has accelerated with the pace of technological advancement. As a result, for many years, technical know-how in many cutting-edge technical fields has not been subject to export controls. This has meant that many commercial technical innovations could be freely exported without significant restrictions. As long as they were not designed for a military application, and no encryption technology involved, many new ideas developed in the United States were simply unaccounted for in the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR).
But the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is about to make up a lot of ground in a single, large leap.
Continue Reading The Little Regulation That Will Make a Big Change in How You Do Business: Department of Commerce to Establish New Export Controls on Emerging Technologies
Every time there is a new round of reforms under the President’s Export Control Reform initiative, we hear the same advice:
Attorneys in the export control space correspondingly inundate us with articles advising, in effect, call your export control lawyer.
Continue Reading Military Electronics Export Reform: Let the Chips Fall Where They May
The U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has amended the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to restrict exports to Venezuela of certain items intended for “a military end use or end user.” These changes complement a pre-existing U.S. arms embargo against Venezuela – in place since 2006 – that was imposed because of Venezuela’s failure to cooperate on counterterrorism initiatives.
Continue Reading Drop Your Weapons: The United States Restricts Military Exports to Venezuela
Glancing through the fictional but fascinating Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Rsch. Ford Prefect; Pub. Megadodo Publications), one might recognize that the assertions therein are a bit confusing. Similarly, one might become confused when reviewing another, less whimsical, guide to the galaxy: the revised United States Munitions List Category XV – Spacecraft and Related Articles.
On November 10, 2014 Export Control Reform revisions will go into effect reshaping the USML category that has covered communications satellites for nearly 20 years. If you are responsible for complying with satellite export controls, we offer the same profound and pithy advice one finds right on the cover of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, “Don’t Panic.”
Here is a summary of export data for the first year after the initial implementation of ECR:
Continue Reading Bulletin: Commerce Department Statistics on the First Year of Export Control Reform
The Year Mark
Apparently, it is now fashionable among my peers to host elaborate parties in honor of the first birthdays of their children. I have attended a number of these fêtes, and been impressed to just what lengths the parents will go to celebrate twelve months of growth and achievement for a Guest of Honor who will almost certainly not recall the event. However, we at the Global Trade Law Blog are nothing if not fashionable (thanks to our firm’s Fashion and Apparel blog – your move, “white shoe” firms) and are not to be left out of the latest trend. As such, we are throwing our own birthday party, celebrating the first anniversary of Export Control Reform.
In the country pubs of Ireland, it has long been the practice of the barkeep to “stand the third round” for good customers, meaning to offer the third drink for free. The practice makes sense both as customer appreciation and as an inducement for those fine customers to continue their revelries right where they are. The third round represents a tipping point for the patron from an after-work drink to a full night out: the transition from a quiet pint or two, to a full investment in the proceedings. When the bartender stands the third round, the now-happy, soon-to-be-elated customer is encouraged to see matters through to the evening’s finish.
Continue Reading ECR Episode IX – Serving up the Third Round: The Next Wave of Export Control Reform Takes Effect on July 1, 2014