Clif Burns
Is the DOJ Tilting at Windmills?
This morning we laid our hands on the criminal complaint, unsealed earlier this week, charging a Dutch aviation parts firm and its owner Rob Kraaipoel with export violations. The underlying violations charged by the criminal complaint are fairly simple. The…
BIS Rules Don’t Consider the Safety of U.S. Contractors in Iraq
Bethesda-based USAID contractor Development Alternatives, Inc (DAI) recently agreed to pay the Bureau of Industry and Security a $7,500 fine for attempted exports in July 2004 of concealable vests, body armor and bomb blast blankets to Iraq without a license.…
Ninth Circuit Bulldozes the Arms Export Control Act
Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against Caterpillar by relatives who had been injured when Caterpillar D9 bulldozers were used to demolish homes in the Palestinian Territories. The court…
Shackles Raise Hackles
The Guardian had an interesting dispatch from this year’s Defense Systems and Equipment Show: Two companies were ejected last night from Britain’s biggest arms fair for promoting leg irons for prisoners and battlefield captors. BCB International, a British-based firm, and…