Insights

Washington – January 26, 2022: Crowell & Moring’s International Trade Group has been named a Practice Group of the Year for 2021 by Law360. This marks the fourth year the group has been recognized by the publication with this distinction.

Washington – March 19, 2020: Chambers and Partners has ranked four Crowell & Moring practice groups and seven individual lawyers in the Chambers Global 2020 guide. The rankings are driven by independent interviews of clients and members of the legal community.

After publishing a proposed rule in March 2023 on how it will implement the national security guardrails for the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (“CHIPS Act”) (the “Proposed Rule”), which all funding recipients are required to follow, the U.S. Department of Commerce (“Commerce”) published the corresponding final rule, (the “Final Rule”). The Final Rule will come into effect on November 24, 2023.

The Outbound Investment Program will be implemented through regulations issued by Treasury that will require notification for, or will otherwise prohibit U.S. persons from undertaking, certain transactions involving “covered national security products or technologies” and entities connected to a “country of concern.” Accordingly – concurrent with the Executive Order – Treasury released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that provides some potential definitions of these terms, but the exact definitions and the details of the regulations will be developed through public notice and comment that concludes on September 28, 2023. Treasury also published a Fact Sheet that provides additional information on the proposed details and scope of the outbound investment prohibitions and notification requirements, which will likely not be finalized until 2024 sometime after Treasury has published draft regulations and gathered another round of public comments.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Defense (“DoD”) issued a memorandum explaining new requirements in its efforts to “Counter[] Unwanted Foreign Influence in Department-Funded Research at Institutions of Higher Education” (the “Memorandum”). The Memorandum discusses DoD’s new processes to review proposals from higher education institutions for fundamental research opportunities, with a focus on security threats posed by China, Russia, and other malign actors.

Crowell & Moring LLP's International Trade Group was featured in a WorldECR special report examining the importance of Washington, D.C. in the U.S. and international export controls and sanctions landscape. The report talked with Crowell & Moring attorneys and other leading lawyers about the impact of U.S. Export Control Reform on real-life business, U.S. sanctions policy and practice, and other issues. WorldECR is the journal of export controls and sanctions.

Meeting U.S. customs law requirements can be challenging, time-consuming, and very costly for importers if not done right. Non-compliance with customs laws can result in civil and criminal penalties, denial of entry, seizure and destruction of goods. It is imperative for importers to have a solid protocol for applying the critical rules on a day-to-day basis.

President Obama's new course in U.S. Cuba policy took shape earlier this year with the release of new authorizations amending the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), providing industry with the new "rules of the road" authorizing certain transactions in or with Cuba – both in the short term and long term.

Crowell & Moring attorneys will examine the myriad of challenges that companies face when balancing efforts to comply with the export regulations of both the United States and China. We will delve into both nations’ export control regulations and provide observations on areas to watch over the next year. Our areas of focus will include:

Please click here for a copy of the presentation. As we discussed in our first This Year in Trade webinar earlier this year, as globalization pushes forward, the potential rewards – from trade, from expansion, from partnerships – have multiplied along with the risks. As a result, companies doing business around the world are facing a variety of important issues affecting their bottom line, including sanctions, export controls, customs, and many others. On Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 12:00 pm Eastern, our Crowell & Moring team will follow up on our February 2015 predictions of the key trade issues to watch globally for 2015 and into 2016.