Export Control Blog

Thank You for Not Calling

I hesitate to write this lest I give anyone working at BIS, DDTC or OFAC any ideas, but here goes...

The agencies which collectively make up the American export control commissariat may be unlikely to win any customer service awards any time soon, but at least they will generally answer your calls (DDTC licensing officers excluded of course). Not so lucky are our British cousins, whose export control regulators at the DTI have officially, not to mention rather brazenly, decided to stop picking up the phone. And you guessed it, this act of bureaucratic nonchalance is being sold as a "change" to help DTI "respond more effectively to enquiries". There is an opportunity to provide "feedback on this new service", but no phone number was provided, natch.

Tip o' the hat to Keith O'Leary for the link.

Making a List and Sanctioning it Twice*

Did you know that the State Department compiles a list of all the entities sanctioned under the Iran Nonproliferation Act? Well, now you do.

*Or five times, in the case of NORINCO.

A New Export Blog

The very small fraternity of export control blogs has grown by one. Meet ExportLawBlog, an effort of the law firm Powell Goldstein. To get a flavor of it, here's a sampling from a recent post titled "Foreign Cows Moo a Sigh of Relief":

Nebraska-based Springer Magrath Co. pleaded guilty to criminal export violations and agreed to pay a $50,000 fine for its shipment of cattle prods to South Africa in 2002 without a license. Cattle prods and other discharge type arms such as stun guns are controlled by ECCN 0A985 and require a license for all destinations except Canada.

Springer Magrath is an agricultural supply house for cattle ranchers, selling such products as calf feeders and calf adoption powder, so it is safe to assume that the people there had never heard of the Commodity Control List prior to their visit from federal authorities. Frankly, many people who have heard of the Commodity Control List might be equally surprised that cattle prods appear on the list. And with good reason. Although cattle prods are, admittedly, often used as devices of torture, they are widely available from sources outside the U.S.

The way things are going I wouldn't be surprised to see 0A985 slapped with Short Supply controls, too. I hear the president needs cattle prods for the "alternative procedures" he favors for his "terrorist interrogation program".

Update 2006 Registration Opens at 1pm Eastern

Received this message within the past hour from BIS:

Update registration will resume today, Thursday, September 14th, at 1:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.  We will activate the attendee registration link listed below at that time.  This link will not be available on the BIS website.  If the conference sells out, the link will default to an on-line waitlist registration form. 

Attendee Registration Link: http://doc.register123.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x32492bc

For U.S. Government attendee registration and exhibitor registration, please email updateconference@bis.doc.gov for instructions.

For additional information on Update, please visit our website at www.bis.doc.gov.

UPDATE UPDATE: As noted in the comments section for this post, Update sold out very quickly and the waitlist is now full.

STELA! Hey, STELA!

Focused like a laser beam on failing to register people for Update, it seems that the crack BIS IT department has let its more mundane responsibilities slide a bit. For example, maintaining the simple voice response system known as STELA (System for Tracking Export License Applications), which has been "temporarily unavailable" for several days now. Dial 202 482 2752 to enjoy this soothing, yet entirely uninformative feminine voice.

Let's hope that OEE is better at catching export control bad guys than the bureau's IT people are at providing "Information Technology (IT) to improve Bureau processes and operations".

New Corporate ExCon Link

Thanks to a reader whose modesty precludes me from acknowledging him by name, there is a new addition to our gallery of companies publishing export classification info to the web -- BMC Software. Look to the right (and perhaps scroll down a bit) for ECB's complete list of 56 such firms.

Libyan Limbo Revisited

Since I took a swing not so long ago at BIS for the delay in amending the EAR to reflect Tripoli's removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, it's only fair to note that they finally put out an interim rule last week. My quick read yields no surprises. For more, take a gander at John Black's analysis.

Why I'm Not Blogging This Week

Meet Jacob Declan Gearity, born August 29, 2006 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Guilty Update: I may not be blogging, but The Guardian did get a quote out of me on the latest air disaster in Iran.