Export Archives - Customs & International Trade Law Firm

BIS FY2025 Annual Report Signals Major Increase in Export Enforcement
Gallery
BIS FY2025 Annual Report Signals Major Increase in Export Enforcement
Best Practices, EAR, Export, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)

BIS FY2025 Annual Report Signals Major Increase in Export Enforcement

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released its Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report to Congress, providing a detailed look at the agency’s export control, licensing, and enforcement activity.

Key Takeaways

BIS reports an 18-fold increase in penalties, from approximately $16 million in calendar year 2024 to approximately $324 million in 2025.
BIS completed 53 administrative enforcement actions, resulting in more than $108 million in civil penalties during FY2025.
BIS enforcement activity included 455 warning letters, 705 detentions, 232 seizures, and 29 denial orders.
BIS investigations resulted in 65 criminal convictions of individuals and companies during FY2025.
BIS completed 1,840 end-use checks across 73 countries, demonstrating the agency’s ability to scrutinize transactions even after goods leave the United States.
BIS added 142 entities to the Entity List, including parties associated with advanced computing, quantum technology, hypersonic weapons programs, and Iranian drone procurement.
Licensing for Entity List parties has become significantly more restrictive: BIS reports granting only 16 new licenses to Entity List companies during Q2–Q4 2025.
Exporters should reassess restricted-party screening, end-user and end-use diligence, product classification, licensing procedures, recordkeeping, and escalation protocols in light of […]

By Jennifer Diaz|2026-09-11T14:55:52-04:00September 11, 2026|Best Practices, EAR, Export, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)|0 Comments

White House Releases National Security Science & Technology Strategy: What It Signals for CFIUS, Outbound Investment, and Export Controls
Gallery
White House Releases National Security Science & Technology Strategy: What It Signals for CFIUS, Outbound Investment, and Export Controls
CFIUS, EAR, Export, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), U.S. Department of Treasury, Uncategorized

White House Releases National Security Science & Technology Strategy: What It Signals for CFIUS, Outbound Investment, and Export Controls

As mandated by Section 10612 of the CHIPS and Science Act, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued the National Security Science and Technology Strategy (NSSTS), which implements the S&T priorities of the 2025 National Security Strategy. While framed as a technology strategy, the NSSTS previews concrete near-term action on CFIUS, outbound investment, export controls, and federal research security — direct touchpoints for clients in cross-border investment, controlled technology, and federally funded R&D.

Key Takeaways

CFIUS’ scope is set to expand. The Administration will seek authority, in consultation with Congress, to monitor high-risk “greenfield” investments and to expand CFIUS’s critical-technology jurisdiction, while continuing to calibrate scrutiny to an investor’s “verifiable distance” from adversary-linked actors under the America First Investment Policy’s allied fast-track approach.
Outbound investment restrictions will broaden. Treasury will refine and likely expand the Outbound Investment Security Program (Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act of 2025) beyond its current scope – AI, quantum, semiconductors, supercomputers, and hypersonics – to reach additional sectors implicated by China’s military-civil fusion strategy. Although the current NSSTS did not reference other countries by name, the strategy will likely be implemented in a way that circumvents particular investments in Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – in line with President Trump’s “America-first investment policy,” published in February 2025.
Export controls: deregulation and new restrictions in parallel. BIS is streamlining select controls (e.g., a […]

By Jennifer Diaz|2026-09-03T12:14:42-04:00September 3, 2026|CFIUS, EAR, Export, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), U.S. Department of Treasury, Uncategorized|0 Comments

BIS End-Use Checks: What Happens When an Export Control Officer Calls Your Customer
Gallery
BIS End-Use Checks: What Happens When an Export Control Officer Calls Your Customer
Best Practices, EAR, Enforcement, Export, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Uncategorized

BIS End-Use Checks: What Happens When an Export Control Officer Calls Your Customer

BIS has published a plain-language FAQ on its End-Use Check program, the on-site visits its Export Control Officers conduct at foreign consignees and end users of U.S.-origin items. This article explains what those visits are, what your foreign customer will be asked to produce, the statutory and regulatory authority behind the request, and the consequences when a check cannot be completed. It matters because the penalty for a failed check falls on the exporter’s ability to ship, not only on the foreign party being visited.

Key Takeaways

An End-Use Check (EUC) is BIS verifying, on site and overseas, that your foreign customer is who it says it is and used your items the way the license or the EAR required.
A failed or incomplete check does not need a finding of wrongdoing to hurt you. The customer can land on the Unverified List, license exceptions disappear, and every shipment then requires a UVL statement.
Since October 2022, a check that stays incomplete for 60 days after Unverified List placement, because a host government blocks it, triggers Entity List proceedings.
The exporter’s exposure is set before the visit ever happens: by the accuracy of the license application, the quality of the paper trail, and whether the foreign party was told what to expect.
Diaz Trade Law prepares exporters […]

By Jennifer Diaz|2026-09-03T12:02:14-04:00September 3, 2026|Best Practices, EAR, Enforcement, Export, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Uncategorized|0 Comments

Getting Off the SDN List: A Practical Guide to OFAC’s Administrative Reconsideration Process
Gallery
Getting Off the SDN List: A Practical Guide to OFAC’s Administrative Reconsideration Process
Export, U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)

Getting Off the SDN List: A Practical Guide to OFAC’s Administrative Reconsideration Process

Landing on the Office of Foreign Assets Control’s (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN List) is one of the most consequential things that can happen to a company or individual doing business in or with the United States. Assets are frozen, U.S. persons are barred from dealing with you, and banking relationships evaporate almost overnight.

The good news is that SDN designations are not necessarily permanent. OFAC maintains a formal process – administrative reconsideration – for petitioning to have a person, entity, or piece of property removed from an OFAC-administered sanctions list. This article walks through how that process works, what to expect at each stage, and where clients most often stumble.

Step One: Confirm You’re Using the Right Process

Before filing anything, it’s worth pausing to confirm which removal process actually applies to your situation, because OFAC’s administrative reconsideration process is not a one-size-fits-all remedy.

You are the designated party. If you, your organization, or your property appear on an OFAC-administered list because OFAC itself made the designation, the administrative reconsideration process under 31 C.F.R. § 501.807 is the correct path, and it runs through OFAC’s Reconsideration Portal.
The designation was made by the State Department. Some names appear on OFAC-administered lists because the Department of State designated them (for example, under certain terrorism-related authorities). Removal in those cases goes through […]

By Jennifer Diaz|2026-08-27T16:16:18-04:00August 27, 2026|Export, U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)|0 Comments

Bosch Agrees to Pay $36 Million Penalty to BIS for Unauthorized Shipments to Huawei
Gallery
Bosch Agrees to Pay $36 Million Penalty to BIS for Unauthorized Shipments to Huawei
EAR, Enforcement, Export, International Trade, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)

Bosch Agrees to Pay $36 Million Penalty to BIS for Unauthorized Shipments to Huawei

Robert Bosch GmbH (Bosch), the German multinational engineering and technology company, has agreed to pay a $36,184,680 penalty to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) for exporting controlled items to Huawei Technologies Co. and its affiliates without the required U.S. government authorization.

What Happened

Between September 2020 and September 2024, Bosch exported approximately $72.4 million worth of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensor products and automotive software from abroad to Huawei and its affiliates. The exported items were subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) under the Foreign Direct Product Rule, a rule that extends U.S. export controls to certain foreign-produced items that incorporate U.S. technology or are manufactured using U.S. equipment. Because Huawei and its affiliates are listed on BIS’s Entity List, any shipment of items subject to the EAR requires a license from BIS. No such license or authorization was obtained.

The MEMS sensors at issue are widely used in consumer products, including smartphones, wearable technology, and automobiles.

The Penalty

In addition to the $36 million BIS civil penalty, Bosch separately agreed with the Department of Justice to disgorge profits from the transactions, with an actual payment of approximately $3.6 million. BIS suspended approximately $3.6 million of its penalty as credit for the disgorgement, bringing Bosch’s total financial exposure to roughly $39.8 million.

Bosch filed a Voluntary Self-Disclosure with […]

By Jennifer Diaz|2026-06-18T12:00:26-04:00June 18, 2026|EAR, Enforcement, Export, International Trade, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS)|0 Comments

12 Next