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As most of us continued to work from home (most of the time) and Covid continued to cast its shadow, we took the decision to continue our Forum virtually in 2022, as we did in 2021. And, once again, we were not disappointed.

I’m delighted that we now have 18 recorded sessions, focusing both on new developments and changes in sanctions and export controls, and also on the practical nuts and bolts ‘must-know’ elements of trade compliance. We have presentations from industry leaders, visionaries, and world-renowned advisers, and we have put together a portfolio of sessions intended to ensure that you and your company are well-briefed, and well-prepared, for 2022 and beyond (and that’s no small boast!).

Tom Blass

Editor, WorldECR

If you weren’t able to join us for the event, you can still purchase unlimited viewing and download access to its 18 presentations covering key trends and developments in global export controls and sanctions, national security and CFIUS, and best practice in trade compliance with Q&A sessions plus live roundtable discussions, all at a sensible price.

Click ‘Buy this webinar’ or go here to see a list of all sessions with full descriptions.

The ‘Covid years’ of 2020-2021 have not been marked by the kind of big-ticket penalties and settlements that hitherto worried global business. But that’s not to say that they haven’t been busy: to date, OFAC’s tally of 2021 settlements weighs in at a modest $20m – but they’ve been across a slew of industries and sectors.

And observers expect new trends: A stronger role for the US DoJ? A more muscular stance taken by post-Brexit UK’s OFSI? China’s national security laws coming of age?

Indeed, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic warn that they remain vigilant, against a backdrop of new trade control regimes and geopolitical tensions.

In this Roundtable discussion, leading sanctions/trade controls practitioners explore the big enforcement events and their significance for industry, highlighting trends, emphases, and the regulator concerns that underpin them, promising valuable insights for organisations’ compliance budgeting, planning and allocation of resources. 

Moderator: Tom Blass, Editor, WorldECR

 

As the landscape of global security and foreign policy threats both broadens and becomes more intricate, regulators have employed export control and sanctions measures to address wider concerns such as human rights, environment and corruption. At the same time, lawmakers have introduced legislation that would further tighten export controls on many commodity products, increase oversight of outward investment flows, and extend the extraterritorial application of domestic laws. 

But are export controls and sanctions the appropriate tools to address the geopolitical concerns?

This session, presented by IBM’s Kevin Cuddy and international trade and customs lawyer Sanjay Notani of Mumbai-based Economic Laws Practice, starts by describing the more innovative uses of trade controls in recent years, and goes on to explore the other kinds of regulatory and legislative interventions governments might employ, such as: controls on cross-border data flows, new techniques for controlling and tracking the export of intangible technology, tighter investment clearance regimes, and use of artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, in their pursuit of the ‘right’  balance between trade and ‘security’.

About Kevin: Kevin Cuddy is a Government & Regulatory Affairs Executive in the Export Regulation Office at IBM. Prior to joining IBM, he was the inaugural Trade, Technology, and Security Fellow at the Stimson Center, focusing on industry’s role in technology transfers and global non-proliferation programs.

About Sanjay: Sanjay Notani is a partner at the Mumbai office of law firm Economic Laws Practice. He is regarded as being amongst India’s leading lawyers for international trade, technology and related policy matters.

 

Since early 2020, the COVID pandemic has turned the world upside down. For many, working from home became not just the norm but a legal obligation, with ‘office life’ replaced by home working, and business travel and meetings replaced by the now ubiquitous dial-in by Zoom or other platforms.

Putting aside the obvious pros and cons of the ‘new normal’ (less commuting/ reduced interface with clients and colleagues), the compliance function has faced particular challenges in the COVID era: How to ensure that controlled data and communications are kept secure, and that the kitchen or dining room workplace isn’t the scene of unwitting trade control breaches or careless ‘shares’.

In a presentation with near-universal applicability to everyone in the world of compliance, Nancy Draper Schaeffer, a valued WorldECR contributor, talks through the key measures that companies need to take to ensure that the move to home and hybrid working does not result in compliance mis-steps or more egregious violations.

In addition to setting out best practice, Nancy will parse the extant guidance issued by regulators through the pandemic, including the temporary changes introduced by the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (‘DDTC’) to facilitate easier working from home for key staff – while setting out how organisations might prepare for continued uncertainties. 

About Nancy: After graduating from Harvard University with a Masters of Liberal Arts in International Relations, Nancy started her first export control position at West Virginia University. After that, she worked in BAE Systems, Inc. International Trade Compliance Office. She recently started working at Leidos, Inc. directly supporting a customer contract.

 

Knowing when to apply for US export control licences, and which licences to apply for, requires careful consideration of rules and circumstances and classifications that frequently change. All too often, companies work on ‘autopilot’, repeating application practices that may well be out of date, insufficient for compliance, or even unnecessary.

In this practice-focused presentation, former US BIS Special Agent, Donald Pearce, walks through the ways in which changing circumstances can affect routine transactions, exploring options and the decision-making process.

Don’s presentation will cover:

Anyone who has attended a Don Pearce training event will attest to his ability to make complex ideas in export control easily digestible and applicable to real-life situations.

About Don: Donald Pearce is a former Senior Special Agent with the US Bureau of Industry and Security (‘BIS’) in the US Department of Commerce. He is now Principal of consultancy Sentinel LLC and Senior Advisor in the Global Risk, Monitorship, and Investigations Practice at international business guidance firm Torres Trade Advisory. Don has been recognised for superior performance by the Secretary of Commerce and the US Attorney General for investigations into highly complex cases.

 

In the past decade – and even more markedly over the past three years – the US Entity List, administered under the Export Administration Regulations (‘EAR’), has become a ‘go-to’ tool for US lawmakers, who have drastically increased the scope of the List, in terms both of criteria for inclusion and the number of parties.

The List – of certain foreign persons (including businesses, research institutions, government and private organisations, individuals, and other types of legal persons) subject to specific licence requirements for the export of goods and other transactions – is often seen as a sanctions list by another name. But understanding how the Entity List works, its categories and the requirements it imposes, is key to accurate, risk-calibrated compliance.

In this presentation, Meredith Rathbone and Alexandra Baj set out what compliance officers need to know about the composition of the Entity List, and the respective requirements its categories impose.

About Meredith: Meredith Rathbone heads Steptoe’s International Trade and Regulatory Compliance group and is the co-chair of its Economic Sanctions and Export Controls practice. She is based in the firm’s London and Washington, DC offices.

About Alexandra: Alexandra Baj is a deputy chair of Steptoe’s International Trade and Regulatory Compliance group. She advises on export controls and economic sanctions laws and regulations, anti-corruption investigations and compliance, international trade, and security clearance issues.

 

Semiconductors – ‘chips’ – are critical to the global economy. At the heart of almost any industry you can name, they are deeply embedded into intricate and complex international supply chains, civilian and defence. So necessary are they that any imposition of restrictions or attempts to reshape the market – such as the imposition of export controls – is inevitably attended with consequences that are far-reaching well beyond the ITC sector. Recent regulation has led to bodies including the Semiconductor Industry Association calling for more thorough evaluation of the impact of controls on the EU and US industrial base.

In this presentation, Steven Brotherton and Lincoln Clark set out the lie of the land of the semiconductor in global supply chains, exploring impacts and challenges for manufacturers, exporters, distributors and integrators, against the backdrop of tighter US export controls and related national security measures.

About Steve: Steven Brotherton is a Principal and leads the Global Export Controls & Sanctions service line at KPMG. Steve has served two terms on the US Department of Commerce’s Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee, which advises BIS on export control regulation and policy.

About Lincoln: Based in Silicon Valley, Lincoln Clark is the Global Leader of KPMG’s semiconductor practice, leading the strategy to service semiconductor companies around the world.

 

The mutual economic dependence between China and the West means obstacles to trade between them is of profound consequence to businesses of all types. But for the past few years, such obstacles have come to be part and parcel of US-Sino business, with Washington articulating concerns around, for example, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and alleged forced labour in Xinjiang through the imposition of sanctions and export controls, and Beijing threatening to exert its own pressures through the use of reciprocal legislation. While fully-fledged ‘decoupling’ appears not to be in sight, navigating the obstacles requires a steady – but responsive – hand on the figurative tiller.

In this session, lawyers Frank Pan and Kerry Contini set out the state of play of, amongst other key challenges for business:

This is a must-attend session for US and Chinese organisations whose trade demands an intimate understanding of these difficult issues, and also for all non-US/Chinese companies potentially affected.

About Frank: Frank Pan is Senior Counsel at FenXun Partners in Shanghai. He has more than 15 years of experience working in a broad range of trade actions, including advising clients on trade law compliance and export controls.

About Kerry: Kerry Contini is a partner in Baker McKenzie’s international trade practice in Washington, DC, advising companies on export controls, sanctions, and supply chain compliance.

 

In September 2021, accompanied by fanfare and scrutiny, the European Union implemented the ‘recast’ dual-use regulation: 821/2021. ‘We need to better respond to emerging threats in an increasingly volatile world. That means getting a better grip on dual-use technologies, including cyber-surveillance technologies that can be misused for human rights violations,’ said Commissioner for EU Trade, Valdis Dombrovskis, when the new regime came into force.

The recast arguably doesn’t constitute the wholesale revision that some had anticipated (it does not include, for example, an additional Annex describing export-controlled items beyond those mandated by the multilateral regimes). But it still represents a departure from the regulation it supersedes, creating a new ‘human security dimension’ with heightened obligations for  exporters to scrutinise end use, a new definition of ‘exporter’, and introducing the prospect of greater transparency and cooperation between EU member state competent authorities in the application and administration of export controls.

As the world takes stock of 821/2021, leading Brussels-based trade lawyer John Grayston outlines its most significant impacts for exporters/reexporters and describes some of the measures member states have taken by way of implementation. 

About John: Principal of Brussels-based Grayston & Company, John Grayston has practised EU law in Brussels for more than 25 years and is a recognised expert on EU laws in particular on customs and trade, export control and sanctions.

 

The ‘Trade Compliance Project’ is a cooperation between the Patria (Finland-based) and Kongsberg (Norway-based) company trade compliance groups and came into the world in June 2019 as the companies sought to join forces to strengthen their trade compliance programmes and achieve a new, holistic, approach to export compliance, improving competences and systems for trade compliance and sharing best practices.

The (WorldECR award-winning) project’s intentions, amongst others, are to:

We’re delighted that Rosa Rosanelli has accepted our invitation to present on the steps that the companies have taken, the reasons for doing so, and the challenges of implementation – with key take-aways that attendees can apply to their own compliance efforts and collaborations.

About Rosa: Rosa Rosanelli is Vice President, Head of Compliance at Patria and project leader.