A subsidiary of American insurance firm MetLife will pay $178,421 to settle allegations that it violated U.S. sanctions by maintaining insurance policies for entities controlled by the Iranian government.
The Trump administration would be unwise to expand its export controls to cover older-generation semiconductors destined to China, but it could pursue new restrictions over less advanced versions of the tools used to make certain chips, technology policy analysts said in interviews, particularly if it’s willing to be more aggressive than the Biden administration in talks with the Dutch and Japanese.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week issued several new and revised FAQs to provide sanctions guidance to the insurance industry.
Foreign investment lawyers aren’t expecting a big change in how the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. operates under a second Trump administration, although a new round of tariffs against China and the continued easing of export restrictions among close U.S. allies could change the investment landscape and the number of filings submitted to CFIUS.
The EU and the U.S. should tighten sanctions against both China and Russia, the EU’s next top foreign affairs official said, saying the two sides need to work closely to break up an emerging alliance between Moscow and Beijing.
European nations are seeing a sharp uptick in export control and sanctions enforcement this year, raising risks for companies doing business in the EU, said Mark Handley, a lawyer with Duane Morris.
American exporters, especially in the agricultural industry, should expect to face retaliatory duties when selling to a range of U.S. trading partners if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his promise to sharply increase tariffs when he takes office next year (see 2408140058), lawyers and advisers said this week.
The Bureau of Industry and Security and its technical advisory committees should do more public outreach to make sure companies are aware of important export control updates sometimes buried in Federal Register notices, a BIS committee heard last week. That outreach is especially critical for companies working with industrial chemical processing equipment, a committee member and industry lawyer said, which has commercial uses but is increasingly drawing BIS scrutiny for its military capabilities, including in chemical weapons.
U.S. mobile phone parts producer Lumentum is under investigation by the Bureau of Industry and Security and DOJ for potentially violating U.S. export controls against Huawei, according to corporate filings.
The U.S. wants to remove more export barriers faced by the commercial space industry even after announcing a set of space-related export control reforms in October, a senior official said this week, adding that the effort could continue under the incoming Trump administration.