The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security Regulations and Procedures Technical Advisory Committee held their quarterly meeting Tuesday, with a wary eye towards the year end and potential for a change of regime.
McKinsey & Company's has failed to disclose consulting work for the Chinese government, and appeared to misrepresent the firm’s work for the Chinese government under oath, all while receiving over $480 million to consult for the U.S. military since 2008, according to a report from congressional investigators. In a detailed report, House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party "outline the details of McKinsey’s work to advance the Chinese Communist Party and Chinese military, its work to shape the Chinese Communist Party’s five-year plans to surpass the United States, and its failure to report its China work as required by U.S. law. "
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul sent a letter to President Biden urging him to implement mandatory sanctions against U.S. adversaries under McCaul’s 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act. (Public Law (118-50) “I call on you to provide additional resources, including detailed staff, to the Departments of Treasury and State for the specific purpose of immediate and robust implementation of the 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act to counter Iran, Russia, and China. The world is on fire; we cannot lose another day to hesitation, appeasement, and weakness.”
Determinedly beating the drum for steelworker votes and economic populism, two of the leading Senate opponents of the purchase of US Steel by a Japanese rival drew attention to the executive compensation of the Pittsburgh steelmaker. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) sent a letter to US Steel CEO David Burritt outlining their concerns. with plans for the firm's current and former top executives to receive payments totaling over $156 million – not including $40.8 million in payments to non-employee board members.
Developing and developed members applauded the EU decision to postpone the implementation of its new Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR) for twelve months. This regulation, which was set to take effect on 30 December 2024, will require a variety of agricultural products sold in the EU market to be "deforestation-free," meaning they must not result from recent (post-31 December 2020) deforestation, forest degradation, or breaches of local environmental and social laws.
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has updated some of its Beneficial Ownership Information Frequently Asked Questions and issued several additional ones. The topics covered are: …
House Republican national security leadership called for the White House to expand license-free defense trade among the U.S., U.K., and Australia to ensure the success of AUKUS Pillar Two and "unleash the combined potential of the three countries’ defense industrial bases to counter the Chinese Communist Party." The lawmakers contend the Excluded Technologies List (ETL) "jeopardizes the viability of Pillar Two."
A U.S. District Judge concluded that the whistleblower, or qui tam, provisions of the False Claims Act violate the Appointments Clause of Article II of the U.S. Constitution because whistleblowers exercise executive-branch power without accountability to the president.
Litigants in London lined up this week as the High Court considers insurance claims on the more nearly 500 western-built commercial aircraft stranded in Russia since February 2022. Insurers, including AIG and Lloyd's of London contend the stranded fleet is not a total loss, and the aircraft may be recovered. Claimants, including leasing giant AerCap are reportedly seeking up to $3 billion from insurers.
The Justice Department Friday unsealed an indictment charging three Iranian nationals with a conspiracy to hack into accounts of current and former U.S. officials, members of the media, nongovernmental organizations, and individuals associated with U.S. political campaigns.
On 25 September 2024, the EU and US held an in-depth technical discussion with transatlantic social partner stakeholders under the Trade and Labour Dialogue (TALD), focused on ways to eradicate forced labour from supply chains and ensure a successful, just and inclusive green transition.
House Republicans spent their waning days in Washington before heading home to campaign promoting initiatives targeting economic cooperation with the Chinese. Proposals include setting up a specialized trade prosecution task force in the Department of Justice, penalizing investment in the China, revoking Permanent Normal Trade Relations with Beijing, and singling out two display makers as Chinese military companies.
The deportation of millions of people from the United States, steeper tariffs, and the erosion of the Federal Reserve’s political independence may make, for some, compelling political speechery, but the economic consequences are daunting, according to a study released Thursday by the nonpartisian Peterson Institute for International Economics. Other observers more definitively on the right have tried to apply real-world budget analysis to the tariff plans of Candidate Trump, with equally disheartening findings.
The Chairs of the House China and Education Committees raised concerns that decades of federally funded research has benefited the defense and security establishments of the PRC.
Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has issued another resource to familiarize small business owners with beneficial ownership reporting requirements. This law requires many small businesses to report basic information to the Federal government about the real people who ultimately own or control them.
A senate subcommittee released a majority staff report detailing its inquiry into the prevalence of American-manufactured microchips in Russian weapons systems. "Our findings reveal a distinct disinterest in evaluating and improving corporate compliance practices and particularly, monitoring those distributors, the middlemen, the ones who may actually make the sales to companies that sell to Russia." said the Committee Chair in his opening remarks.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report highlights the substantial investments China is making through the world’s largest infrastructure finance program, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Contributors to the report identified challenges to US competitiveness includeing the "lack of a public national strategy to guide and prioritize" U.S. efforts and the "fragmentation of foreign assistance efforts" across several federal agencies.
Majority staff from the Homeland Security and Select China Committees released a report recapping their efforts to draw attention to the role of Chinese suppliers in U.S. Port Security. China's Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. (ZPMC), the world’s largest STS crane manufacturer is an entity of particular focus of the report. Producing nearly 80% of the STS cranes used at U.S. ports ZPMC commands 70% of the global market share.
Additionally, OFAC put on public inspection Interim Final Rule to Extend Recordkeeping Requirements from Five to 10 Years, consistent with the extension of the statute of limitations for violations of certain sanctions administered by OFAC. OFAC also put on public inspection a Comment Request for Reporting, Procedures and Penalties Regulations and Other Information Collections Maintained by OFAC for comments concerning OFAC's information requirements.
The Georgia Institute of Technology announced it is shuttering its Shenzhen campus and closing a chapter of educational cooperation in the “China’s Silicon Valley” dating back to 1984. To date, Tianjin University remains on the Entity List, making Georgia Tech’s participation with Tianjin University, and subsequently GTSI, no longer tenable" the Iniversity said in a statement.