International Trade Law News

The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) recently entered into settlement agreements with two companies for violations of the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

On March 11, 2005, BIS issued an order stating that it had imposed a $39,000 civil penalty against BEF Corporation, of Allentown, PA, for attempting to export mini photo labs to Iran. Specifically, BIS charged BEF with one violation of 15 CFR 764.2(d) for conspiracy to export photo labs to Iran. BIS claimed that BEF tried to conceal the ultimate destination of the photo labs by exporting them through the United Arab Emirates to Iran. In addition, BIS charged BEF with three violations of 15 CFR 764.2 for making false statements on Shipper's Export Declarations regarding the value of the exports.

In yet another successor liability case, on March 14, 2005 BIS imposed a $46,750 penalty on Rockwell Automation (Rockwell), of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for 17 violations of the EAR. Ten of the violations occurred before Rockwell acquired Entek-IRD International (Entek-US) and Entek IRD International Limited (Entek-UK) and seven of the violations occurred after the acquisition had occurred. Specifically, BIS charged Rockwell with multiple violations of 15 CFR 764.2(a) for exporting balancing machines (ECCN 2B229) to Malaysia, Mexico and Venezuela without obtaining the required export license. The company was also charged with making false statements on Shipper's Export Declarations since they reported that the item could be exported from the U.S. as NLR ("No license required") and was classified as 3A992. The company was also charged with reexporting U.S.-origin products from the U.K. to a company on the U.S. Entity List.