International Trade Law News

Twelve trade-related business organizations today sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez expressing their concerns with several recommendations contained in the Deemed Export Advisory Committee's (DEAC) December 20, 2007 report. The letter also warned of the significant negative impact on U.S. technological leadership if certain recommendations contained in the DEAC's report were adopted.

The organizations agreed with the DEAC report findings regarding the difficulty of controlling the global flow of technological knowledge, particularly through the use of unilateral U.S. export control regulations. The organizations also endorsed the report's call for limiting the scope of deemed exports. However, the letter criticized the DEAC report for a lack of guidance in addressing either of these issues.

The letter concluded by urging the Commerce Department to "go back to the drawing board and work closely with industry in developing an approach that will produce a more balanced result."

On February 6th, BIS announced that it completed its review of the DEAC's report and has started working with the Departments of Defense, State and Energy to consider the report's analysis and recommendations as a basis for reforming current deemed export policy. On that same date BIS also announced that it would create an Emerging Technologies Advisory Committee to make recommendations to BIS regarding emerging technologies and improve outreach and engagement efforts to the academic and technology communities about deemed export policies.

The letter sent to Secretary of Gutierrez can be found here .

The full text of the DEAC report, entitled "The Deemed Export Rule in the Era of Globalization" can be found here.

Labels: BIS, Deemed Exports