A federal grand jury indicted a Chinese national, charging him with four counts of theft of trade secrets in connection with an alleged plan to steal from Google LLC (Google) proprietary information related to artificial intelligence (AI) technology. According to the indictment, returned on March 5, Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, 38, a national of the People’s Republic of China and resident of Newark, California, transferred sensitive Google trade secrets and other confidential information from Google’s network to his personal account while secretly affiliating himself with PRC-based companies in the AI industry. Ding was arrested March 6th.

The Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, have issued a Tri-Seal Compliance Note: Obligations of foreign-based persons to comply with U.S. sanctions and export control laws. The Note highlights the applicability of U.S. sanctions and export control laws to persons and entities located abroad, as well as the enforcement mechanisms that are available for the U.S. government to hold non-U.S. persons accountable for violations of such laws, including criminal prosecution.

The Boeing Company will make three $9 million payments to the government to settle a pattern of material violations of export control law, including unauthorized exports of USML controlled technical data, unauthorized exports of defense articles, and Unauthorized Exports Resulting from Fabricated Permanent Export Licenses. The company agreed to name a Designated Official to head a review of the firms compliance and to spend at least $24 million on consultants, auditors and training.

Citing the Chinese government's broad authority to access and control the "vast amounts of data" generated by by chinese vehicles and components, the US Department of Commerce is preparing rules to bar trading with Chinese Automakers and suppliers of advanced componentry.  Commerce has issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) seeking public comment to inform the potential development of regulations to secure and safeguard the Information and Communications Technology and Services (ICTS) supply chain for connected vehicles (CVs).  

Joining British and European allies, the US imposed a further raft of sanctions on Russia and her enablers. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning almost 300 individuals and entities. This is the largest number of sanctions imposed since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. State is designating three Government of Russia officials in connection with Aleksey Navalny’s death; together, Treasury and State are sanctioning over 500 targets. The Department of Commerce is also adding more than 90 companies to the Entity List.

The White house announced initiatives to improve the cyber security of the US Port infrastructire, with enhanced authorities for the Coast Guard to inspect vessels and write minimum cybersecurity rules.   Additionally, the administration will invest over $20 billion to subsidize the manufacture of cranes in the US and Korea, to reduce a dependance on Chinese supply. There are no plans to replace the over 200 Chinese cranes already in place.

Nearly $500,000 of forfeited proceeds of an illicit machine tool sale to Russian buyers will be used to support a drone-based program to assess the damage Russian aggression has done to Ukraine’s electrical distribution and transmission infrastructure. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Estonian Secretary General Tõnis Saar announced  the transfer at the Munich Security Conference Saturday Feb 17.

Volkswagen said Tuesday that  U.S. Customs had detained several thousand Bentley, Porsche and Audi vehicles at ports because the cars contained a part made by a Chinese supplier on a sanctions list for using forced labor in Xinjiang. The automaker describes the part's origin as a "sub-supplier," meaning a supplier to one of its suppliers—an entity far down the supply chain. Last year VW committed to conducting a supply chain audit for exposure to modern slavery.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, the most strident anti-communist to come out of Wisconsin's Fox River Valley since Sen. Joseph McCarthy, has had enough of the House of Representatives.    Mr. Gallagher told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he will leave Congress at the end of his current term to enter the private sector and spend more time with his young family.  

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has taken its second price cap enforcement action of 2024, imposing sanctions on four entities and identifying one vessel as blocked property. OFAC is also issuing two new determinations that implement G7 commitments to ban the importation of Russian diamonds.

The Commerce Department published a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) for establishing new requirements for Infrastructure as a Service providers (IaaS or “cloud infrastructure providers”). The proposed rule introduces potential regulations that require U.S. cloud infrastructure providers and their foreign resellers to implement and maintain Customer Identification Programs (CIPs), which would include the collection of “Know Your Customer” (KYC) information.

Six U.S. Departments published a Supplemental Advisory, reminding businesses and individuals of the compliance and reputational risks associated with trading with the military regime in Rangoon.   While North American companies continue to engage in Burmese extractive industries, the growing ring of sanctions means firms in the Rare Earths, Timber and Precious Metals trade run an increasing risk of negative legal, financial, or reputational consequences.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has expanded the scope of the EAR’s Russian and Belarusian Industry Sector Sanctions by adding 95 6-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) codes to the list of items requiring a license for export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) to Russia or Belarus. The expanded list of items includes certain chemicals, lubricants, and metals, and it covers the entirety of Chapter 88 of the HTS (aircraft, spacecraft, and parts thereof).

The facilitator of the World Trade Organization's dispute settlement reform, Marco Tulio Molina Tejeda, circulated the fourth draft of the confidential ministerial decision, our correspondent writes. This draft remains silent on the appeal/review mechanism and the restoration of the Appellate Body. It introduces terms like “adjudicators,” absent in the current dispute settlement understanding, according to sources.

Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is conducting a comprehensive assessment of the use of mature-node semiconductor devices (legacy chips) in the supply chains that support—directly or indirectly—U.S. national security and critical infrastructure.

Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matt Axelrod announced enhancements and expansions of the Bureau's Voluntary Self-Disclosure program, including simplified reporting, e-mail submittals and expedited handling of corrective action for unlawfully exported items. In a speech January 16 at NYU School of Law’s Program on Corporate Compliance and Enforcement Mr. Alelrod described the changes, along with an engaging history of the jukebox, details of which can be found in the complete speech.  

WTO members negotiating the accession of Comoros and Timor-Leste on 9 and 11 January, respectively, agreed by consensus, ad referendum, on the terms of the countries' WTO membership, paving the way for the least-developed countries (LDC) to join the organization. With the conclusion of the Working Party’s mandate, the accession package for both states will be submitted to ministers for a formal decision at the WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) in Abu Dhabi on 26-29 February.

SAP SE (SAP), a publicly traded global software company based in Germany, will pay over $220 million to resolve investigations by the U.S. Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). According to the SEC complaint, from at least December 2014 through December 2018,  SAP employed third-party intermediaries and consultants in various schemes to make improper payments to government officials in order to obtain and retain business in South Africa, Greater Africa (Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana), and Indonesia. Readers may recall SAP’s prior history, which include a non-prosecution agreement from 2021 with the Justice Department’s National Security Division, as well as administrative agreements with the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury relating to Iran-related export law violations, and a resolution in 2016 with the SEC concerning alleged FCPA violations in Panama.

ASML, a Dutch semiconductor producer, had its license to ship two types of machines that make semiconductors partially revoked. This comes after ASML canceled some of its shipments ahead of tightening Dutch restrictions on exports. "China opposes the US’s overstretching the national security concept and using all sorts of pretexts to coerce other countries into joining its technological blockade against China," said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin.  

The Export-Import Bank of the U.S.  Board of Directors approved a $90 million guarantee under EXIM’s Supply Chain Finance Guarantee Program to Dutch Financier ING Capital to finance U.S. Natural Gas processor Freeport LNG Marketing. In 2020 Exim approved a deal with Freeport LNG, "with the first-ever use of a funder guarantee structure" for  $50 million.  That deal was a "tripartite agreement"  between EXIM, Private Export Funding Corporation (PEFCO) , and the scandal-plagued, now insolvent Greensill Capital. In June 2022 a blast attributed to safety failures caused approximately $275 million in damages and took the plant offline for 18 months.