The U.S. announced a new set of sweeping Russia-related export controls and sanctions last week to mark the two-year anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and to respond to Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny's death in prison. The measures include nearly 100 additions to the Commerce Department’s Entity List, more than 500 sanctions designations by the Treasury and State departments and new government guidance, including a new business advisory to warn companies about Russia-related compliance risks.
Industry lawyers and advisers see the Bureau of Industry and Security's revamped voluntary disclosure policies as a positive set of moves that could reduce compliance burdens on exporters and encourage more companies to come forward with tips about their competitors. But at least one former government official said corporations should remain skeptical about the changes until BIS offers more clarity about how it will implement them in practice.
A New York freight forwarder agreed to complete export compliance training, but won’t face a fine, after admitting to the Bureau of Industry and Security that it illegally shipped enterprise servers and switches to Iran on behalf of an Iran-based exporter.
U.S. enforcement officials last week continued to warn about upcoming export control penalties, saying they hope those cases encourage companies to devote more resources to their compliance programs.
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The Bureau of Industry and Security should get a “significant” funding boost next year so its export control authorities can keep pace with emerging technologies and so its enforcement branch can continue increasing penalties on violators, the top Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee said this week.
Technology companies, trade groups, think tanks and researchers urged the government to be cautious as it evaluates its semiconductor-related export controls and prepares new ones, warning that misguided restrictions could cede American technology leadership to China, hurt the competitiveness of U.S. companies and raise the complexity of an already fraught compliance landscape.
The Bureau of Industry and Security reached a $153,175 settlement with Wabtec, a U.S. rail technology manufacturer and supplier, after the company violated BIS’ antiboycott regulations. The agency said Wabtec committed 43 violations when it failed to report to BIS that it received requests from a Pakistani customer to boycott goods from Israel.
The Commerce Department is proposing new rules that could require U.S. cloud service providers and their foreign resellers to follow know-your-customer (KYC) requirements, a step the agency said would prevent those services from being used to aid cyberattacks and to train artificial intelligence models that threaten U.S. national security. The proposed regulations are specifically aimed at preventing “foreign malicious cyber actors” from using U.S. infrastructure-as-a-service products to steal American intellectual property and sensitive data, commit espionage, and train large AI models for cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure.
The Bureau of Industry and Security will likely issue more penalty announcements this year for export control violations, a former senior BIS enforcement official said, suggesting the current state of enforcement is unprecedented.