Although the U.S. should be concerned about university espionage and research theft, it shouldn’t place restrictions on fundamental research, said Arati Prabhakar, President Joe Biden’s nominee for director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, speaking during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation hearing this week. She said the U.S. has some “real issues” involving research security, which “have to be wrestled with” but not in a way that stifles innovation and hurts American competitiveness.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a July 19 opinion denied Hong Kong-based apparel company Changji Esquel Textile's (CJE) bid for a preliminary injunction against its placement on the Commerce Department's Entity List, calling it "a Hail Mary pass." Judges Judith Rogers, Patricia Millett and Gregory Katsas held that CJE's claims that human rights violations are not proper grounds to be placed on the Entity List are not likely to succeed, upholding the district court's ruling saying the same thing.
The Bureau of Industry and Security should harmonize the Entity List with other lists across various agencies to better capture foreign companies that should be subject to strict trade restrictions, lawmakers told BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez this week. Others said BIS has failed to blacklist Chinese military companies that deserve placement on the Entity List, allowing the Chinese government to continue to buy sensitive American technologies.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is conducting a review of the types of semiconductors and chipmaking equipment that can be exported to China to determine whether it needs to tighten those restrictions, BIS Undersecretary Alan Estevez said, speaking during a Senate Banking Committee hearing last week. He said the agency is considering tightening the “cut-off point” of semiconductors that are subject to strict export licensing requirements.
The EU is ramping up efforts to monitor Russia-related export control evasion and hopes to soon make more progress on sanctions enforcement within the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, said Sabine Weyand, the European Commission’s director general for trade, speaking during a July 13 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She expects EU enforcement to soon pick up because many of the bloc’s wind-down periods for the restrictions are ending.
NSO Group, an Israeli cybersecurity company, has hired lobbyists, law firms and public relations companies in an effort to remove itself from the Commerce Department’s Entity List, ProPublica reported July 12. The company, which was added to the Entity List in November (see 2111030010), has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past year in an effort to influence lawmakers, think tanks and media outlets, the report said. NSO hopes to raise the issue during an upcoming meeting between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid during Biden’s trip to the Middle East this week, the report said. An NSO spokesperson didn’t comment.
The Bureau of Industry and Security on July 7 sent an interim final rule for interagency review that will clarify how export controls are applied in the context of international standards-setting bodies. The rule will specifically authorize certain items and “releases of technology” to entities on the Entity List “for standards setting or development in standards organizations,” BIS said.
Although Chinese companies with little international exposure may decide to violate export restrictions against Russia, most of the larger companies likely won’t take the risk, experts said. So far, most Chinese companies are complying with the sanctions and only continuing to buy Russian oil and gas, the experts said, despite strong opposition to Western sanctions by the Chinese government.
Although China hasn’t yet implemented its anti-foreign-sanctions law in Hong Kong, it may only be a matter of time, said Jessica Bartlett, the global head of financial crime legal at Barclays, speaking during a July 6 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said multinational companies are continuing to face a “challenging” sanctions compliance environment in Hong Kong, which could grow more difficult depending on how the government decides whether and if to penalize firms for complying with foreign sanctions.
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