Bill Aims to Curb ‘Monopoly’ Export Licenses
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., introduced a bill last week that would require the Bureau of Industry and Security to conduct a competitive market review of applications to export items to entities on the agency’s Entity List.
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Such an analysis would help determine whether issuing a license would give a single applicant the sole license to export an item to an end user, the legislation says. Such “monopoly” licenses could be issued only if there were no other applicants. If BIS were to grant that license, the bill says the agency "shall approve any subsequent application for a license or other authorization for the same technology as the original license, unless approving such application creates a unique risk or concern that was not present at the time that the original license or other authorization was issued.’’
The bill is intended to address “several instances in past years” where “so-called ‘monopoly’ licenses have been inadvertently issued to companies,” a press release from Scott and Warren said. “These cases granted an exclusive right for a single company to sell a specific product to an entity on Commerce’s Entity List without consideration of the market-distorting impacts of these monopolies.”
Issuing monopoly licenses “creates the appearance” that BIS “favors some companies at the expense of others, undermining the credibility of the bureau and undercutting the ability of the United States Government to work with the governments of allies and partners to build a shared regulatory infrastructure to control sensitive commercial technology,” the legislation says.
The License Monopoly Prevention Act was referred to the Senate Banking Committee.