On June 16, 2023, the US Commerce Department published a final rule (“Final Rule”), implementing President Biden’s 2021 Executive Order 14034 on “Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries,” to amend the Commerce Department’s “Securing the Information and Communications Technology Supply Chain” regulations, 15 C.F.R. Part 7 (“ICTS Regulations”). The amendments mainly relate to connected software applications. The Final Rule was issued in response to comments received to a notice of proposed rulemaking (“NPRM”) issued…
On March 30, 2023, the White House and US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) announced human rights and export control measures that underscore the US Government’s focus on human rights as a matter of foreign policy. The White House announcement is available here. The BIS announcement is available here. The White also issued a Fact Sheet that includes these announcements and other sanctions and export control provisions. White House: Export Controls…
On January 5, 2023, President Biden signed the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act into law. This law seeks to deter the theft of US intellectual property by non-US actors by threatening to impose economic sanctions on those engaged in trade secrets theft. This law adds to existing measures available under US law, such as criminal prosecution, civil lawsuits, and/or designation to a US restricted parties list such as the Entity List (maintained by the US…
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”), the US Department of State (“State”), the US Department of Commerce (“Commerce”), and the US Department of Energy (“DOE”) issued rules adjusting maximum civil monetary penalties (“CMPs”) under the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act Improvements Act of 2015, as outlined below. (For additional years of CMPs, see our previous blog post available here.) OFAC CMP Adjustments Under OFAC’s final rule issued on January 13,…