News & Noteworthy

We are pleased to introduce John Saylor, another export veteran who will be blogging regularly for CTP. John is the Chairman of the VA/DC District Export Council (DEC), a volunteer organization that mentors local businesses seeking to export.  With over 40 years of experience in transportation, logistics, and  trade development, John brings a valuable perspective to CTP’s blogosphere. John’s blog series will focus on trade policy, regulatory changes, and local trade-related events, attempting to keep CTP subscribers abreast of relevant opportunities and developments. Take it away, John.

On May 25th, the White House conducted abriefing to unveil the latest policy and regulatory changes regarding Cuba. This event drew considerable media attention, given the on-going desire by President Obama to chart a new course in bilateral relations and to further engage and empower the Cuban people.

Conducting an export control audit is essential to any successful export compliance program. It is critical that all companies subject to U.S. export control laws maintain export compliance programs and routinely audit their effectiveness and efficiency. In recent settlement agreements, U.S. agencies have ordered companies to independently audit their export control compliance systems. Not only can auditing your company at regular intervals save you a visit from investigators but an audit can highlight better ways to integrate compliance standard operating procedures with other business processes within your organization.

In our experience, export compliance audits involve three phases: the preparation phase; the on-site visit; and the reporting phase. Typically, the completion of an export compliance audit then leads into remediation activities on behalf of the company to address the findings from the audit. With that in mind, here are a few tips to consider when preparing for an export compliance audit.

There is a confluence of export control activities in Washington, D.C.  The Society for International Affairs (SIA) recently completed their fall compliance conference earlier this week and the annual "Update" conference held by the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is from November 2, 2015 until November 4, 2015. In addition, the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) recently announced that they are extending the timeline for the transition of items from the U.S. Munitions List (USML) to the Commerce Control List (CCL) as part of the Export Control Reform (ECR) initiative.

We invite you to tune in tomorrow, February 19th, at 1:00 pm (Eastern) to a webinar that CTP is co-sponsoring with Seclore, a data security provider. The 30-minute webinar will focus on identifying and addressing the risks of Technology Transfer. CTP’s Director of Commercial Business, Rick Phipps, will join a panel of experts to discuss the issues from varying perspectives. There will be time for questions at the end or you can follow up with any of the experts directly.

Exporters and compliance experts have a keen eye on the export control reforms that have been gathering momentum in recent months. The Reform Initiative was a key topic during the “Update 2012 Conference on Export Controls and Policy”, held July 17-19, 2012 in Washington. Several key speakers and sessions were focused on different proposals, notably the re-definition of the term “specially designed” and the proposed plans for the orderly transition of select items from the U.S. Munitions List (USML) to the Commerce Control List (CCL).