Recently, third parties have been petitioning the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to initiate investigations into forced labor violations involving specific manufacturers/exporters and specific merchandise. In “Slavery in Supply Chains: CBP Petitions Raise New Forced Labor Compliance Risks,” colleagues Nancy A. Fischer and Sahar J. Hafeez examine the role…
As trade relations with China continue to evolve, Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (“Huawei”) and its foreign affiliates remain subject to broad U.S. export license requirements. However, President Trump’s statements at the G20 Summit on the relaxation of restrictions on Huawei were followed by recent senior administration officials’ announcements, including Commerce…
Announced last week, “INSTEX had been made operational and available to all EU Member States.” INSTEX is the special purpose financing channel designed by the EU to permit the processing of payments for trade between the EU and Iran. INSTEX was deemed necessary by the EU in light of the…
On June 5, 2019, the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) amended an important license exception which generally permitted the temporary sojourn of civil aircraft and vessels to Cuba. Specifically, BIS eliminated the license exception for use by non-commercial aircraft and passenger and recreational vessels sailing to…
On May 21, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) established a process through which U.S. stakeholders may exclude products included in List 3 from a 25% tariff imposed pursuant to the investigation of China’s intellectual property practices under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 (“Section…
On May 16, 2019, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce added Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (Huawei) and sixty-eight of its non-U.S. affiliates to the Entity List, thereby prohibiting the export or transfer of U.S. commercial and dual-use goods, software and technology to those…
Further to our prior blog post, on May 13, 2019, at the direction of President Trump, the Office of U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published a proposed tariff list covering approximately $300 billion worth of Chinese imports to be subject to higher duties pursuant to the determinations previously made under Section…
On May 9, 2019, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued a Federal Notice indicating that tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports would be increased from 10% to 25%. These products are included in the third set of tariff categories (the first two sets are…
On April 8, 2019, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) proposed imposing tariffs on $11.2 billion worth of products from the European Union (EU). USTR took this action in connection with an over decade long battle between the EU and the U.S. before the World Trade Organization (WTO) over mutual…
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) has cleared the acquisition of Beijing OmniVision Technologies Co., Ltd. by Shanghai Will Semiconductor Co., a PRC-listed company, according to an April 16, 2019, filing with the securities regulators in China. This is welcome news after a string of negative decisions…