On November 19, 2018, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) seeking comments on implementation of Section 1758 of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. This section requires Commerce, in consultation with DoD and other CFIUS member agencies, to define “emerging technologies” sufficiently significant to U.S. national security interests to impose some level of export controls over the technology and potentially to trigger mandatory declarations of…

On October 10, Treasury announced interim regulations to implement certain provisions of the Foreign Investment Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), which President Trump signed into law on August 13, 2018. As part of that announcement, Treasury will initiate a pilot program imposing mandatory declarations on transactions involving certain sensitive sectors. That pilot program is due to go into effect on November 10, 2018 and will cover 27 “pilot program industries.” One of the questions for analysis…

On August 13, 2018, the President signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 which includes the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA) updating national security reviews performed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Some FIRRMA provisions are effective immediately, but the effective date of others requires formal rulemaking to be completed within the next 18 months. Included in the provisions effective immediately is a…

  On July 16, 2018, the Court of Federal Claims released a far-reaching decision in Acetris Health, LLC v. United States, concluding that a drug could qualify as a “U.S.-made end product” under the Trade Agreements clause, FAR 52.225-5, despite a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) ruling under the Trade Agreements Act (TAA), that the drug had not been “substantially transformed” in the United States, the usual test for whether a product from a…

On February 15, 2018, Representative Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced new legislation intended to “modernize U.S. export control regulations of dual-use items.” In spite of its title, the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (H.R. 5040) does little to further the original goals of the Export Control Reform initiative and appears more squarely focused on using the Export Administration Regulations to prevent U.S. adversaries — principally the PRC — from…

On January 24, a day ahead of a Senate Banking Committee hearing on reforming the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the White House issued its official endorsement of Senator John Cornyn’s (R-TX) bill, “Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act” (“FIRRMA,” S. 2098). Congressman Robert Pittenger (R-NC) has introduced companion legislation in the House of Representatives (H.R. 4311). In its press statement, the White House noted that CFIUS modernization…