WSJ Quotes Rebekah Jones on ZTE Sanctions Case
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For its article “U.S. Says It Is in Talks With China’s ZTE on Trade Sanctions,” The Wall Street Journal quoted Akin Gump international trade counsel Rebekah Jones, resident in the firm’s Singapore office, on reports that the U.S. Commerce Dept. is talking with China’s ZTE Corp. Last week, Commerce had announced trade sanctions on ZTE for violating U.S. regulations controlling export of American technological goods to Iran and other proscribed nations.
ZTE was placed on the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List of “foreign persons…subject to specific license requirements for the export, reexport and/or transfer (in-country) of specified items,” in effect, cutting ZTE off from any exports from the United States, including software and hardware, without a Commerce Dept. license.
Jones, whose practice includes a focus on export controls and economic sanctions, noted that it is not uncommon for companies on the Entity List to remain under investigation by the U.S. government, potentially facing criminal or civil penalties. She added that, in ZTE’s case, given the significant impact on the global supply chain and the geopolitics between the United States and China, this will be an interesting case to follow.
Akin Gump recently issued an international trade client alert on the ZTE sanctions. Read it here.