The Bureau of Industry and Security could use more export enforcement agents abroad and better analytical tools to track illegal shipments, said Matthew Axelrod, the agency’s top export enforcement official. He also said companies should expect BIS to continue to issue large corporate enforcement penalties for export control violations.

A new final rule issued by the Bureau of Industry and Security this week will codify a host of updates the agency made to its administrative enforcement policies over the past three years, including measures to help BIS more quickly resolve minor voluntary disclosures and increase penalties on exporters who choose not to report serious violations. Other changes will give BIS broader discretion to impose higher fines, including by eliminating language that had capped maximum base civil penalties for “non-egregious” violations.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control unveiled an interim final rule this week that will extend the agency’s sanctions-related record-keeping requirements from five years to 10 years. The rule, effective in mid-March, will align the agency’s record-keeping rules with a similar expansion of the statute of limitations for civil and criminal violations of U.S. sanctions as part of a bill passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this year (see 2407220022 and 2404290071).

U.S. computing chip manufacturers told a congressional panel this week that they’re increasing their scrutiny of products that have ended up in Russian weapons used in Ukraine.

The House approved several export control-related bills late Sept. 9, including the Remote Access Security Act, which is designed to close a loophole that has allowed China to use cloud service providers to access advanced U.S. computing chips remotely (see 2409040046).

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U.S. computing chip manufacturers need to do more to stem the flow of their export-controlled products to Russia’s defense industrial base, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Sept. 10.

The EU needs to strengthen its foreign investment screening rules and develop a new strategy to shore up its supply of critical raw materials, which will help shield EU countries from economic coercion, the European Commission said in a new report.

Export controls, sanctions and investment screenings remain among the top challenges faced by U.S. companies doing business in China, according to an annual member survey released by the U.S.-China Business Council on Sept. 6.

The banking industry’s increasing overcompliance with U.S. sanctions is leading to an uptick in unnecessary financing delays and transaction cancellations, nongovernmental organizations told the Treasury Department. They said the issues are causing hurdles for humanitarian groups trying to deliver aid abroad and raising discrimination concerns among foreigners living in the U.S.