Clif Burns

Clif Burns

Luxury — We Know It When We See It

Last Friday BIS issued its new and final rule in the war of the iPods pursuant to which the U.S. has proposed to ban export of “luxury items” to North Korea. These sanctions were allegedly directed at the power elite…

Beware My Power, Blue Lantern’s Light!

The Federation of American Scientists has received, pursuant to an FOIA request, a complete list of the unfavorable determinations from the “end-use” or “Blue Lantern” checks conducted by the State Department during FY 2002 through 2004. Under the Blue Lantern…

OFAC Fines ORC for Using Data from Libya

OFAC has released its monthly civil penalty report for January. As usual, OFAC seems to be in competition with BIS to provide even less information about penalties imposed by the agency. Only two penalties are listed: one for “an individual”…

The Boycott Woes of Cairo

BIS issued the first anti-boycott penalty of the year last week to the National Bank of Egypt (warning: linked Bank web site has migraine-inducing animated gifs). As a result, BIS wrangled a settlement agreement and payment of $22,500 from the…

Compliance and Rejection Division

Last week DDTC posted a notice on its website warning license applicants that their license applications would be returned if the applicant’s name on the license application did not exactly match the name on the applicant’s registration. Unsure of your…