The Treasury Department last week issued a set of proposed regulations that could introduce new prohibitions and notification requirements on U.S. investments in China, Hong Kong and Macau as the Biden administration works toward finalizing the new rules before year-end (see 2405080039). The proposed rule, which builds on an advance notice of proposed rulemaking Treasury issued in August (see 2308090066), outlines how the agency would implement new bans on certain types of outbound American investments in China’s semiconductor, quantum and artificial intelligence industries, as well as notification requirements for other, broader investments in China’s chip and AI sectors.
Ian Cohen
Ian Cohen, Deputy Managing Editor, is a reporter with Export Compliance Daily and its sister publications International Trade Today and Trade Law Daily, where he covers export controls, sanctions and international trade issues. He previously worked as a local government reporter in South Florida. Ian graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Florida in 2017 and lives in Washington, D.C. He joined the staff of Warren Communications News in 2019.
A government technical advisory committee is working on two reports about compliance challenges posed by the Bureau of Industry and Security's foreign direct product rule and its semiconductor export controls.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will add three entities linked to Kaspersky, a Russian cybersecurity software firm, to the Entity List for working with Russian military and intelligence services. The agency also will place new restrictions on American companies and people buying or using Kaspersky cybersecurity and antivirus software.
A new strategy by the Bureau of Industry and Security to add a set of addresses -- instead of company names -- to the Entity List could lead to screening challenges for exporters, industry officials told the agency this week.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is working on another rule to address some of the comments it received from its updated semiconductor export controls released in October (see 2310170055), said Sharron Cook, a senior BIS export policy analyst.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is hoping to publish a rule this summer that would again update or clarify how export controls apply to releases of technology for standards setting or development in standards organizations, said Hillary Hess, director of the BIS regulatory policy division.
The Bureau of Industry and Security issued two temporary denial orders last week as part of the Biden administration's latest package of Russia-related sanctions and export controls (see 2406120036), targeting companies and people in the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands, Turkey and Indonesia for sending export controlled items to Russia.
An Oregon-based forwarding company will face a three-year export denial order after it failed to adhere to a 2021 settlement agreement with the Bureau of Industry and Security and continued to violate U.S. export regulations.
The next administration should look to raise criminal penalties for trade theft, broaden the scope of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and refocus its export controls on military technologies to better compete with China, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation said this week. ITIF also said the U.S. should push for a new “techno-economic alliance” of key trading partners and develop a new multilateral export control regime focused on semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
The Bureau of Industry and Security's April rule to reduce certain export license requirements for Australia and the U.K. should incorporate some minor changes to clarify what types of exports are covered, the Aerospace Industries Association said in comments to the agency. AIA also asked BIS to clarify whether the new rules will include a transition period and to make sure the changes will be reflected in export filing requirements.