Export-controls notes

Basic information

Export-controls law is more than a bit complicated, but it’s extremely important for a provider of goods or data to sort out.

Noncompliance can lead to all kinds of trouble, including imprisonment for up to 10 years; millions of dollars in fines and civil penalties; and denial of export privileges.

For additional information, see the Commerce Department’s Introduction to Commerce Department Export Controls, which has links leading to information about State Department export controls as well.

Information can be “exported” in surprising ways

Disclosure of export-restricted technical data to a foreign national, even in the U.S., can constitute a “deemed export.”

According to a spring 2009 memo by the Squires Sanders law firm,

… sending an email containing controlled technical data – even to an overseas employee with US citizenship — constitutes an export that requires a license under either the ITAR or the EAR, unless covered by a specific license exemption or exception. Were a US employee to then disclose the contents of such email to a non-US citizen, that act may constitute a separate export transaction — a re-export.

Squire Sanders & Dempsey LLP, Can Using Your BlackBerry Device Overseas Violate the ITAR? in International Trade and Technology Transfer (IT3) Update (spring 2009) (accessed Mar. 25, 2009).