• The current system operates under two different control lists with fundamentally different approaches to defining controlled products, administered by two different departments. This has caused significant ambiguity, confusion and jurisdictional disputes, delaying clear license determinations for months and, in some cases, years.
 
• There are three different primary licensing agencies, each applying their own policies. None sees the others’ licenses, and each operates under unique procedures and definitions, leading to gaps in the system and disparate licensing requirements for nearly identical products.
 
• A multitude of agencies with overlapping and duplicative authorities currently enforce our export controls, creating redundancies and jeopardizing each other’s cases.
 
• All these agencies operate on a number of separate information technology (IT) systems, none of which is accessible to other licensing or enforcement agencies or easily compatible with the other systems, resulting in the U.S. Government not having the capability of knowing what it has approved for export and, more significantly, what it has denied.

 
Under President Obama’s plan, agencies will define new criteria to determine what items need to be controlled.  The criteria will be used to revise lists of munitions and dual use items.  The goal of the revisions is to make sure the lists meet the following criteria:

• are “tiered” to distinguish the types of items that should be subject to stricter or more permissive levels of control for different destinations, end-uses, and end-users
 
• create a “bright line” between the two current control lists to clarify jurisdictional determinations and reduce government and industry uncertainty about whether particular items are subject to the control of the State Department or the Commerce Department
 
• are structurally aligned so that they potentially can be combined into a single list of controlled items.

  
Once a controlled item is assigned to a tier, a corresponding license will be applied.  Restructuring control lists and harmonized licensing policies based on tier will revolutionize our export control system.  This means export enforcement will have to be stepped up.  It is said that “the President will…sign an executive order establishing an Export Enforcement Coordination Center that will coordinate and strengthen the U.S. Government’s enforcement efforts – and eliminate gaps and duplication – across all relevant departments and agencies.”
 
This article goes into detail about the proposed revisions and is definitely worth a read.  The President’s plan sounds great in theory – I guess we’ll soon see how it plays out in reality.

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• Beth Peterson, President of BPE
• Nathan Pieri, SVP of Marketing & Product Management for Management Dynamics
• Virginia Thompson, Director of Import/Export Operations and Int. Trade Compliance for Crate and Barrell

The panel will discuss the best strategies for compliance professionals to get executive level cooperation and sponsorship of their initiatives.  Their focus will include:

• The pain points of each member in the boardroom and how they relate to compliance  issues (and key messaging to use when speaking to each board member)
• Tools to use in your presentation, such as quantifying compliance and its effect on the bottom line
• How automation can contribute to your efforts by adding value and saving money

Best of all?  It’s FREE!  Follow this link to register.
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• Replacing senior management
• Establishing an Independent Export Compliance Committee to oversee remedial compliance efforts
• Improving ITAR compliance procedures
• Providing ITAR training to employees
• Conducting a targeted ITAR audit to confirm the effectiveness of its compliance measures

They are very lucky.  If this had been handled as a criminal matter, the company would have been barred from future government contracts, just as the supply chain management company Agility has been.  They are suspended from future U.S. government contracts until their criminal fraud case has been resolved.
 
The New York Times reported that Xe Services committed a range of violations, from illegally exporting weapons to Afghanistan, to making unauthorized proposals to train troops in Sudan, to providing Taiwanese police officers with sniper training.  The company also shipped automatic weapons (and other military equipment) to its personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Xe is said to have covered its tracks by hiding their actions in some cases – going so far as to ship weapons inside containers of dog food.  Who thought that one up?