A Commerce Department technical advisory committee is considering proposing an exception for U.S. deemed export regulations to allow U.S. businesses to better compete with foreign companies. The potential exception, which hasn’t been finalized but was discussed during a July 27 meeting of the Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee, would authorize certain deemed exports to company employees, contractors or interns if the items are for “internal company use.” Committee members said the exception wouldn’t be eligible for deemed exports to foreign nationals from Country Groups E:1 and E:2, which includes Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a New York online money transmitter and provider more than $1.4 million for violating U.S. sanctions on the Crimea region of Ukraine, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Payoneer came to a settlement agreement with OFAC after illegally processing more than 2,000 payments for parties in sanctioned countries, OFAC said in a July notice. The fine was OFAC’s third highest this year.

The Treasury Department released its annual report to Congress for fiscal year 2020 on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., outlining CFIUS statistics, key judgments and an overview of transactions reviewed by the committee. Unlike previous annual reports, the FY20 version includes statistics on declarations required for transactions involving critical technologies. The report includes numbers on the declarations made under the requirements, which took effect in October but applied to transactions after Feb. 13, 2020 (see 2009140041), and the pilot program that preceded the requirements.

The U.S. should expand certain foreign investment reporting requirements and establish a list of trusted partner countries that are exempt from investment screening disclosures, the House Armed Services Committee said last week. The committee presented the comments in a July 22 report from its bipartisan Defense Critical Supply Chain Task Force, which said the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. can be used more efficiently to help make critical defense supply chains more secure.

The U.S. said it will not block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, a commitment meant to strengthen ties with Germany but one that frustrated U.S. lawmakers who for months have called for strict sanctions against the pipeline. While the State Department said the U.S. and Germany remain “united in their determination” to sanction Russia for “malign activities,” the Russia-backed pipeline will proceed, they said.

CBP has begun drafting an announcement that will require shippers to use electronic export manifests (see 2003110038) for all ocean, air and rail shipments, said Jim Swanson, CBP’s director of the Cargo and Security Controls Division. While the agency doesn’t yet have a firm effective date, he said CBP is finally working on regulatory changes that would mandate those electronic filings and expects to issue Federal Register notices in “the next several months.”

Although enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act this year is off to its slowest start in a decade (see 2105050018), industry should expect FCPA penalties to pick up as more Justice Department officials are appointed and the Biden administration follows through on its commitment to combat corruption, lawyers said. They also said the administration will work more closely with allies and within the interagency, which should continue a trend of rising FCPA enforcement.

Export Compliance Daily is providing readers with the top stories for July 12-16 in case you missed them. You can find any article by searching the title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

The U.S. shouldn’t rely on export controls on semiconductors to stay ahead of China because the strategy would likely “backfire,” a former Department of Defense official told Congress this week. Lisa Porter, the former deputy undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said government intervention in supply chains can “distort the market in ways that are hard to predict” and could lead to unintended consequences for the microelectronics industry.

The Commerce and Treasury departments fined a Dubai energy equipment supplier and its U.S. affiliate more than $430,000 for illegally exporting goods to Iran, the agencies said July 19. The U.S. fined Dubai-based Alfa Laval Middle East (AL Middle East) $415,695 for exporting Gamajet brand storage tank cleaning units from the U.S. to Iran and fined Virginia-based Alfa Laval (AL U.S.) $16,875 because its subsidiary referred an Iranian “business opportunity” to AL Middle East, according to enforcement orders issued this week.