U.S.-based technology company Oracle this month updated its export control licensing guidance for its software products. The guidance features an Export Control Classification Number matrix, which lists the ECCN for various Oracle products and whether they require a license or are eligible for certain export license exceptions. The company updated a similar guidance for its hardware products earlier this year.
The U.S. should update its export control process, specifically around licensing, to better boost the competitiveness of the space industrial base, government officials and industry representatives said. Some in industry said U.S. companies often face burdensome licensing requirements compared with foreign competitors, which hurt their standing in global markets.
China announced certain steps it will take to optimize its port business environment to promote cross-border trade facilitation for imports and exports subject to quarantine, the General Administration of Customs said Aug. 23, according to an unofficial translation. The steps include dropping the requirement for entry-exit health quarantine and sanitation entities to get approval from customs, giving entry-exit health quarantine and sanitation treatment entities the capability of on-site disinfection, and strengthening the supervision of the on-site operation of entry and exit animal and plant quarantine and pest control.
The Biden administration should update Congress on the ongoing Iran nuclear deal negotiations, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said. “It is vital Congress have a clear view over how any agreement with Iran does or does not address the full scope of Iran’s malign activities,” he wrote in an Aug. 23 letter to the White House, in which he criticized the administration for its “lack of recent engagement with Congress” on the talks. “I urge you to provide a series of briefings to Congress” as “soon as possible,” he said.
The Treasury Department warned Turkish businesses this week that they may be hit with U.S. sanctions if they do business with designated Russian people or entities, The Wall Street Journal reported Aug. 22. In letters to the American Chamber of Commerce in Turkey and the Turkey Industry and Business Association, Treasury Deputy Secretary Wally Adeyemo warned Turkish companies that they will be cut off from American banks if they do business with sanctioned Russian banks.
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The Bureau of Industry and Security added seven Chinese entities to its Entity List for acquiring or attempting to acquire U.S. technology to support China’s “military modernization efforts.” All the entities -- which include six research institutes connected to China Electronics Technology Group, one of the country’s largest electronics companies -- will require a license for all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations. BIS will review license applications under a policy of presumption of denial. The additions took effect Aug. 24.
The U.K. published a General License Aug. 22 under its Russia sanctions regime permitting crown servants and contractors, and their family members or visiting family members, to "carry out activities in their personal capacity in Russia which would otherwise be prohibited," under the Russian restrictions. Where visiting family members -- the spouse, civil partner, parent, sibling or child of a crown servant or contractor -- are concerned, the license extends only to activities that stem from their being in Russia to visit the household of a crown servant or contractor. The license took effect Aug. 19.
Guillermo Gomez-Lazcano, an undocumented Mexican national living in Houston, was sentenced to federal prison for his role in a scheme to export hundreds of firearms to criminal organizations in Mexico, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas announced. Gomez-Lazcano is the 18th identified member of the scheme and pleaded guilty in April to being an alien in possession of a firearm, possessing a machine gun and engaging in the conspiracy to possess with intent to sell a controlled substance. Gomez-Lazcano was sentenced to 200 months in federal prison.
A group of European countries not in the EU implemented four recent sanctions decisions made by the EU to align with the bloc's sanctions regimes, the European Council announced Aug. 22. The EU added four individuals and one entity to its Syria sanctions list in July, and subsequently the countries of North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Albania, Ukraine, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway adopted the additions, the council said. These same countries took up the council's July 26 sanctions move that dropped the entry for one deceased individual from its Libya sanctions regime.