The State Department last year limited its new open general license pilot program to defense reexports and retransfers because of a database issue with CBP, and may eventually look to expand the authorization to include regular exports, said Dilan Wickrema, an official with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. “Frankly, the reason why we haven't been able to include exports into an OGL yet is because we would have to amend CBPs database to allow and accept some kind of code indicating that an OGL was used,” Wickrema said.
The U.S. should take more steps to counter corruption and sanctions evasion efforts by Russian kleptocrats, including through a new multilateral anti-corruption council, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said this week. While he applauded recent funding passed by Congress to provide more resources for government enforcement efforts, he said lawmakers have more work to do to close sanctions loopholes.
Although the State Department is working to better streamline its export licensing process, the agency is facing increasingly complicated licensing decisions and a large volume of applications, said Sarah Heidema, policy director for the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls. She said DDTC has “thousands of licenses pending adjudication” at “any given time,” and some require extensive analysis.
Compliance with a new country of origin (COO) reporting requirement in the Automated Export System would be difficult for smaller and occasional exporters, many of which would likely have to develop new processes to report that information, the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America told the Census Bureau. The NCBFAA urged Census to research whether it can collect that COO information from other sources before it decides to move forward with the proposal.
The G-7 price cap on Russian oil, along with other trade restrictions, appears to be having a significant impact on the global price of Russian energy, experts said during an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies last week. But they also said it remains unclear whether the cap is limiting Russia’s export volumes and said it’s too early to tell how well industry is complying with the cap’s service restrictions.
The Treasury Department last week issued an order barring certain funds transfers involving a Hong Kong-registered cryptocurrency exchange due to its ties to illicit Russian financing. The order, which is the first issued under new authority granted to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network under the Combating Russian Money Laundering Act, prohibits “certain transmittals of funds” involving Bitzlato by a range of financial institutions.
Although the Biden administration appears to be leaning toward a narrower outbound investment screening mechanism than previously expected, that doesn’t mean the tool will remain narrow indefinitely, former U.S. national security officials cautioned this week. They also said they expect implementation to be challenging, particularly as the government tries to define specific technologies outbound reviews should capture.
DOJ this week released its revised criminal corporate enforcement policies for voluntary self-disclosures, outlining new criteria companies must meet to qualify for declinations even in cases where there are aggravating factors. The new updates, which are the “first significant changes” to the Criminal Division’s corporate enforcement policies (CEP) since 2017, offer companies “new, significant, and concrete incentives to self-disclose misconduct,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite said, speaking at Georgetown Law Center. He also said they give companies incentives to “go far above and beyond the bare minimum when they cooperate with our investigations.”
The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee said the Commerce Department hasn’t yet provided “acceptable responses” to oversight questions about the agency’s technology export controls. In a letter sent last week to Commerce, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said the House committee may “use the authorities available to it to enforce these requests as necessary, including through compulsory process.”
U.S. and Japanese officials this week said they are hopeful the two countries will soon align their semiconductor export controls against China, adding to optimism within the Commerce Department that U.S. allies will eventually agree on the chip restrictions. The U.S. and Japan have made “progress” during recent talks, Japanese Ambassador Koji Tomita said, adding that they could reach more concrete results shortly.