Insights

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued new guidance (“BIS Guidance”) for financial institutions (“FIs”) on October 9, 2024, recommending that FIs undertake specific compliance practices to minimize their risk of violating General Prohibition (“GP”) 10 of BIS’s Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”).  GP 10 prohibits any person (U.S. or otherwise) from selling, transferring, exporting, reexporting, financing, ordering, buying, removing, concealing, storing, using, loaning, disposing of, transporting, forwarding, or otherwise servicing an item “subject to the EAR” with knowledge that that item was, or will be, exported, reexported, or transferred in violation of the EAR.  Knowledge in this context goes beyond actual knowledge, and can be inferred from circumstances surrounding a transaction; in other words, a “known or should have known” standard.  Although BIS has published several joint alerts with FinCEN encouraging financial institutions to look for potential red flags of evasion of export controls, this guidance goes further in establishing specific export compliance best practices for financial institutions and suggests that financial institutions that finance or otherwise service prohibited exports risk liability under the EAR.

In response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and to exert further pressure on Russia, the EU enacted its 14thsanctions package against Russia on June 24, 2024. The new package comes after months of negotiations between Member States, and follow, but in many ways expand upon, those passed by the United States and the UK last week (see Crowell’s Alert on those developments here). 

On June 20, 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced a Final Determination, pursuant to the Securing the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain (ICTS) regulations, prohibiting Kaspersky Lab, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of a Russia-based anti-virus software and cybersecurity company, from providing anti-virus software and cybersecurity products or services in the United States or to U.S. persons (wherever located) because it poses undue and unacceptable risk to U.S. national security. The prohibition also applies to Kaspersky Lab, Inc.’s affiliates, subsidiaries and parent companies (collectively Kaspersky). This is the first time that BIS’s Office of Information and Communications Technology and Services (OICTS) has issued a determination pursuant to the ICTS regulations.

Crowell & Moring attorneys will examine the myriad of challenges that companies face when balancing efforts to comply with the export regulations of both the United States and China. We will delve into both nations’ export control regulations and provide observations on areas to watch over the next year. Our areas of focus will include:

This CLE course discusses the various national security restrictions that university and research laboratories face, particularly with regards to China and Russia. Some topics include sanctions, export controls, government contracts, Chinese data laws, Chinese counterespionage laws, and other similar legal regimes.

Global Trade Talks is a podcast that shares brief perspectives on key global issues on international trade, current events, business, law, and public policy as they impact our lives. In this session, hosts and International Trade Practice Leaders Nicole Simonian and Dj Wolff talk with Crowell lawyers Jeremy Iloulian and Laurel Saito about the significant new sanctions and export control authorities included in the recently enacted National Security Supplemental fiscal package. While this legislation is best known for providing U.S. foreign aid commitments for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, it also contains critical trade related provisions that (i) expand the statute of limitations for U.S. sanctions violations; (ii) give the President new authorities to coordinate sanction efforts with the US and UK; (iii) expand sanctions and export controls on Iran (with some targeting Chinese financial institutions); and (iv) provide for new sanctions authorities targeting terror groups.