WorldECR Publishes Kevin Wolf Article on Commerce Dept. Public Consultation re: Export Controls and Emerging Tech

WorldECR has published “Commerce asks the public for advice on possible export controls over emerging technologies,” an article by Akin Gump international trade partner Kevin Wolf. The article is based on a client alert issued by the firm (read here).

Wolf, who came to Akin Gump after a seven-year stint as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration in the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) at the Department of Commerce, discusses the publication of a notice by BIS in which it sought “public comments on how it should define and identify a wide variety of emerging technologies that are not now controlled for export but should because they are essential to the national security of the United States.”

Wolf characterizes this effort as the public start to “the most complex, intellectually challenging and economically significant effort” to identify multiple categories of emerging tech that, for “non-specific national security concerns,” would warrant unilateral controls on sale abroad, limitations to their release to foreign persons in the U.S. and mandatory filing requirements with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. for “non-controlling foreign investments of any size in US businesses.”

The article discusses Commerce’s and the administration’s motivations and actions, the implications of the effort, the standards for determining subject emerging technologies, the representative technologies identified and the comments Commerce seeks, among other topics.