A couple from Florida plead guilty to duty evasion on plywood imports, and selling illegally imported plywood products, as well as smuggling and violations of the Lacey Act. The loss of duties was ~ $42 million. Read More

U.S. Customs and Border Protection worked with Bureau of Land Management to find people who stole dinosaur bones from Utah to sell and export. The defendants were in court in October. Read More

The Bureau of Industry and Security issued a rule updating the general authorizations for Samsung and SK hynix for semiconductor facilities in PRC. This is under the Validated End-User (VEU) program. This basically gives the South Korea companies permission to…

The Deputy AG announced new Safe Harbor policy for VSDs that are made in connection with mergers and acquisitions. This was during the remarks that Lisa Monaco gave at the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics’ 22nd Annual Compliance and…

The Department of State, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) is issuing a new ITAR Compliance Risk Matrix, accompanied by a supplemental risk matrix specific to universities. These risk matrices are intended to assist organizations in assessing their level of…

BIS published guidance on Best Practice: Certification to Prevent Diversion to Russia of Highest Priority Items. They identified 45 HS codes that have controlled items that are at risk of being diverted due to their importance to Russia’s ware efforts.…

Singapore is fining Hydronav Services, a Singpore company, for violations of their export controls in sending goods to Myanmar. They lied and said it was going to Indonesia. Read More

August 2023 statistics are here. Details on migration, narcotics traffic, travel, the CBP One app, forced labor and intellectual property, and agriculture topics. Read More

OFAC settled with 3M and Emigrant Bank for $9,618,477. This is for a potential civil liability for 54 apparent violations of sanctions on Iran. 3M’s subsidiary sold reflective license plate sheeting to an Iranian entity controlled by Iranian law enforcement.…

The existing Section 301 Exclusions that were set to expire 9/30/2023 are now extended until 12/31/2023. The list of impacted HS codes and items are in the Federal Register notice. Read More