New Export Penalties Poster Available

New Deemed Export Rule Advisory Opinion

The Bureau of Industry (BIS), the agency in charge of our nation’s civil and dual-purpose export regulations, just published an Advisory Opinion on the Deemed Export Rule. The BIS rarely publishes advisory opinions, so when it does, it certainly demands attention.

The Advisory Opinion uses the stilted language common in regulatory edicts. In a nutshell, the BIS warns that when you receive a deemed export license to transfer controlled technology to one of your employees who is a foreign national, your employee better be a long-term employee. You can’t share (or “release”) the technology to temporary employees, contract employees, or consultants. If your license is also country-specific, you need to make sure that the recipients of the technology are citizens or permanent residents of only that country.

The Advisory Opinion is good news to the extent BIS sheds light on the Deemed Export Rule, one of the most unusual and demanding export laws. The Advisory Opinion is bad news if you have a slew of temporary employees or if you aren’t sure about the citizenship of those receiving your technology.

Need help understanding the Deemed Export Rule? Register for our online course. It's available 24/7 and it explains the rule in easy to understand detail. Click here for more information.

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GRVR Celebrates 14 Years Of International Trade Excellence

Gonzalez Rolon Valdespino & Rodriguez, LLC, Attorneys (GRVR Attorneys) is celebrating its fourteenth year as one of the nation’s leading international trade law firms. Ruth Rodriguez, an original founding member of GRVR Attorneys, attributes the law firm’s success and growth to having lawyers with the skills, intelligence, and educational background to provide the best legal representation anywhere. “The goal of GRVR Attorneys is to raise the bar for customs and export lawyers. We might be able to rest on our unparalleled reputation for consistent and excellent legal advocacy on our client’s behalf, but we are not like other firms. We are committed to improving upon our industry-leading model of integrity, exacting detail, and sound counsel. We have only begun.”

GRVR Attorneys has a global practice in the area of export, import/customs, and international trade. GRVR Attorneys has offices in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Mexico City.

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So, President Bush goes to India and enters into an agreement to trade away nuclear technology, while back home a controversy erupts regarding the plan to let a Dubai company run several major US ports. Is there any connection between these two seemingly unrelated events? Fortunately, as a reader to this newsletter, you know that there must be. So, what connects them?Spices.

Civilization for millennia has been shaped by the spice trade. The European Age of Discovery, with explorers from Columbus to Megallan, was launched because of the demand for spices from the Orient. Western empires (primarily Spanish, Portugese, Spanish, and English) road the lucrative spice shipping routes. Cultures were spawned, lived vibrant lives, and then died because of humankind’s hunger for spices. Spices, gold, land, and Christianity motivated Europe’s conquest of the Americas. The stock market was created to accommodate a flourishing spice trade.

Interesting, you might say, but what does all this have to do with the Indian nuclear deal and the Dubai company’s take over of our ports? India has always been at the nexus of the spice trade. Even today, India is the world’s largest exporter of spices. But growing is not the same as controlling spices. The spice trade was monopolized for centures by (drum roll please) Arabia, all to the furious envy of Europe. The Economist provides helpful context:

The great beneficiaries of Europe’s need were the Arabs. Spices could change hands a dozen times between their source and Europe, soaring in value with each transaction, and the Arabs were the greatest of the middlemen. Keen to keep it that way, they did everything possible to confuse consumers about the spices’ origins. As early as the 5th century BC an Arab cover story fooled Herodotus into believing that cinnamon was found only on a mountain range somewhere in Arabia. The spices were jealously guarded by vicious birds of prey, he wrote, which made their nests of the stuff on steep mountain slopes. Arabs would leave out large chunks of fresh donkey meat for the birds to take back to their nests, which would crash to the ground under the weight. The brave Arabs then grabbed the nests, from under the talons of their previous owners.

Some historians claim that the Crusades reflect more our spice envy than a desire to reclaim the Holy Land. It is no mere coincidence that Mohammed was a successful spice trader.

This article from the University of Waterloo further explores the connections:

As the Muslim Empire took hold of the Near East from the 6th and 7th century AD onward, European trade in spices in the region all but dried up. The Prophet Mohammed and his followers even took advantage of the Arab spice trade in the Near East to help them spread their message of Islam far and wide. Mohammed himself even married a wealthy spice-trading widow in 595 AD, and his religious message may have carried more weight when associated with a commodity that people already wanted - spices. It was perhaps partly due to this shift in power and spice trading monopolies that, while Europe plunged into the Dark Ages, the Muslim world thrived as the centre of trade, culture, science and intellect.

It’s deja vu all over again. Anytime Arabs control our supply of important resources, whether oil or ports, all sorts of alarms go off. Whether the alarms are justified or not, that is for the reader to decide. What is clear is that we are riding one of history’s main currents of suspicion and prejudice. Through the nuclear pact with India, we are trying to provide counterweight to the growing economic and military influence of China. Playing China (history’s other main source of spices) against India also has it roots in our historical pursuit of the world’s riches, including spices.

To learn more, visit:

The American Spice Trade Association History of Spices
History of the Spice Trade - Wikipedia
Arab Spice Trade and Spread of Islam
American University, The School of International Service

Next Issue: China and the Silk Road

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History Lesson

What do the India Nuclear Pact and the Dubai Company’s taking over of US ports have in common?

New Law Puts Brakes on International Bride Brokers (Women's eNews)

As of March 6, the government will be required to ask U.S. men seeking visas for a prospective bride to disclose any criminal convictions related to domestic violence, sexual assault or child abuse. Immigration officials will be required to deny anyone seeking within a two-year period to sponsor a second fiancee or stop any petitions for a third fiancee visa. Marriage brokers, for their part, are required to conduct searches of state and federal sexual predator databases on all their male clients and provide any findings along with marriage history, information on children under 18 and criminal records to prospective brides before making an introduction. They are also required to obtain written consent from a woman before providing her contact information to any man. In cases where a marriage broker is found to have violated the law, civil and criminal penalties include a $25,000 fine and a five-year prison term maximum per violation. Click here for the rest of the article.

Coca-Cola Pays $136,500 to OFAC to settle Sudan Sanctions Allegations

The Coca-Cola Company, Atlanta, GA 30301 (“Coca-Cola”), has remitted $136,500 to settle allegations of violations of the Sudan sanctions occurring between June 2002 and April 2004. OFAC alleged that Coca-Cola exported to its bottler in Sudan services not authorized by its OFAC license and disregarded or evaded certain OFAC license restrictions. The services included financial and market support. Coca-Cola has represented to OFAC that it has taken remedial measures and made upgrades to its OFAC compliance program. Coca-Cola voluntarily disclosed this matter to OFAC. Click here for the entire OFAC press release.

Oil exporters can help trade balance-Treasury paper (Reuters)

Soaring world oil prices have had a significant impact on rising global imbalances in international trade, and oil exporters now need to play a role in unwinding those gaps, a U.S. Treasury paper said on Friday. Highlighting the scale to which a trebling of world crude prices since early 2002 has boosted the current account surpluses of the big oil-exporting nations and exaggerated U.S. deficits, the paper said there were many areas for oil-rich countries to aid world rebalancing. "To the extent that oil exporters' revenues accumulate, global imbalances will be higher than otherwise and oil exporters will need to be part of the adjustment process, just as emerging Asia, the United States, Japan and Europe need to play a role," the paper said. Click here for the rest of the story.

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Do-Gooder Corner – International Fair Trade Association
www.ifat.org

(from the website):

IFAT is the International Fair Trade Association, the global network of Fair Trade Organizations (FTOs). IFAT's mission is to improve the livelihoods and well being of disadvantaged producers by linking and promoting Fair Trade Organizations, and speaking out for greater justice in world trade. Over 270 FTOs in 60 countries form the basis of our network and membership is growing steadily. Approximately 65% of our members are based in the South (that is: Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America) with the rest coming from North America & the Pacific Rim and Europe. We are truly international! Our members have the concept of Fair Trade at the heart of their mission and at the core of what they do. They come in many shapes and sizes and represent the Fair Trade chain from production to sale. Our members are producer co-operatives and associations, export marketing companies, importers, retailers, national and regional Fair Trade networks and financial institutions, dedicated to Fair Trade principles.

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March 2006

In this Issue

New Export Penalties Poster
Deemed Export Advisory Opinion
GRVR Celebrates 14 years
C-TPAT in Spanish
History Lesson
DHL latest corporate sponsor
C-TPAT Best Practices Guide
News Roundup
Compliance Calendar
Contacting GRVR

CBP issues C-TPAT Best Practices Guide

After years of promising to do it, US Customs and Border Protection has finally published a Best Practices Catalog for the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism. This document is good news and bad news. The good part is that it explains some of the fuzzy language that has always been a problem with C-TPAT. The bad news is that it is now clear that some of the security measures CBP would like to see are pretty extensive. It is now clear that CBP expects to see a company applying for C-TPAT conduct regular, in-person, surprise audits of foreign suppliers.

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CONTACT INFORMATION

Gonzalez Rolon Valdespino & Rodriguez, LLC, Attorneys
Park Place Center, Suite 300
2911 Turtle Creek Boulevard
Dallas, Texas 75219

Mailing Address:
Post Office Box 131587
Dallas, Texas 75313-1587 U.S.A.

Phone: 214.720.7720 Fax: 214.720.6076 Toll-Free: 800.256.2013

Dallas • Houston • San Antonio • Mexico City

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Disclaimer

You won’t find any legal advice anywhere in this newsletter, on our website, or in any course or public lesson we offer. If you would like legal advice, you need to ask your attorney. GRVR Attorneys provide legal advice only to existing clients in a confidential and private setting, not in public (i.e., not in a newsletter). If you are looking to hire an international trade attorney, we would love to hear from you. The GRVR Attorney responsible for the contents of this newsletter is Oscar Gonzalez. He can be reached at 214.720.3894 or oscarg@exportimportlaw.com.

© 2006 Gonzalez Rolon Valdespino & Rodriguez, Attorneys. All Rights Reserved.