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BIS Announces $2 Million Settlement with Lambda Research Corporation for 66 Export Control Violations 

On October 2, 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced a $2 million administrative settlement with Massachusetts-based Lambda Research Corporation involving 66 alleged violations of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The case involved exports of optical and illumination design software, automatic software updates, and transactions with parties on the Entity List and Unverified List. 

Key Takeaways 

  • EAR99 does not mean unrestricted. Even software classified as EAR99 may require an export license when the recipient is on the BIS Entity List. 
  • Automatic software updates can constitute exports. BIS charged Lambda with violations involving software updates transmitted to restricted parties after their addition to the Entity List. 
  • Restricted-party screening must be ongoing. A customer who was not restricted when a transaction began may become subject to licensing requirements later. 
  • Distributors do not eliminate export compliance obligations. Exporters must evaluate the actual end users of their products, including transactions conducted through intermediaries. 
  • The Unverified List creates additional compliance requirements. Certain transactions involving Unverified List parties require a UVL statement even when an export license is not otherwise required. 
  • Informal compliance efforts are insufficient. BIS cited Lambda’s lack of written export compliance procedures, employee training, and designated compliance personnel. 
  • Voluntary self-disclosure does not eliminate penalties. […]
By |2026-10-09T11:35:03-04:00October 9, 2026|EAR, Enforcement, Export, penalty, U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Uncategorized|0 Comments
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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 |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
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Wood Packaging Material Violations: What to Do When CBP Issues an EAN 

This article explains what an importer should do in the first 24 hours after CBP issues an Emergency Action Notification (EAN) for non-compliant wood packaging material (WPM), how CBP calculates and mitigates the penalties that follow, and how the new APHIS-approved shredder-hammermill treatment can save the underlying cargo. It matters because a WPM penalty is assessed at the full domestic value of the merchandise, requires no pre-penalty notice, and can be issued even when the importer fully complies with the EAN. The decisions made before the cargo leaves the port determine how much of that exposure survives. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

  • An Emergency Action Notification (EAN) for non-compliant wood packaging material is not the end of the matter. It is the start of a penalty file. Call counsel the day it arrives, not the day the penalty notice arrives. 
  • CBP penalties for WPM violations are assessed at the domestic value of the merchandise under 19 U.S.C. § 1595a(b), with no pre-penalty notice required. A single violation is enough. The old five-violation threshold was eliminated in 2017. 
  • Mitigation is real but shrinks fast: 1 to 10 percent of the penalty on a first violation, 10 to 25 percent on a second, and a 25 percent floor on the third. Documented immediate remediation and cooperation are what move you toward the low end. 
  • Shredder-hammermilling is now an APHIS-approved treatment for non-compliant […]
By |2026-09-03T12:10:01-04:00September 3, 2026|Enforcement, Import, penalty, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Uncategorized|0 Comments
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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 |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
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CFIUS Annual Report to Congress, CY 2025: What It Means for Your Next Cross-Border Deal 

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS” or the “Committee”) has released its Annual Report to Congress for calendar year 2025 — marking the Committee’s 50th year of operation. The Report confirms that CFIUS remains an active and increasingly assertive gatekeeper for foreign investment in the United States, even as the Committee absorbed significant operational disruption in 2025 from lapses in federal appropriations that tolled statutory deadlines for more than 120 days over the course of the year. 

This alert distills the CY 2025 Report — and the Committee’s own year-over-year comparisons — into the trends most relevant to companies and investors planning transactions that may fall within CFIUS jurisdiction. Two developments stand out. First, the President issued prohibition and forced-divestment orders of a U.S. business in two transactions in 2025, continuing a pattern (also seen in 2024) that had been dormant since 2020; this is CFIUS’s most severe remedy, and its reappearance in back-to-back years is a meaningful signal for deals in sensitive sectors. Second, and directly relevant to parties that conclude a transaction does not warrant a voluntary filing, CFIUS’s non-notified transaction program continued to convert unfiled deals into mandatory filing demands — formally requiring nine parties to submit a declaration or notice in 2025 after Treasury investigated 90 potential non-notified transactions and opened 62 official inquiries. 

Below, we summarize the key figures from the CY 2025 Report to help clients calibrate risk, timing, and filing strategy. 

By |2026-08-24T10:53:23-04:00August 24, 2026|CFIUS, U.S. Department of Treasury, Uncategorized|0 Comments
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