The BIS Charging Letters List was added to AEB's portfolio of restricted party lists in November 2023. Should this list be relevant for your company, and you wish to include it into your AEB Compliance Screening software, the BIS Charging Letters List can be licensed in addition to your already existing content.
What is the meaning of this list?
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is a part of the United States Department of Commerce (DoC). The BIS and particularly the Office of Export Enforcement (OEE) within it, is responsible for enforcing international trade treaties and the Export Administration Regulations (EARs). The OEE is authorized to investigate and prosecute individuals or organizations who violate U.S. import and export law.
If evidence is gathered that a company violated an international trade treaty or EAR, they can initiate an investigation into a company. In this case, a company or an individual will receive a charging letter. The charging letter is a formal notification that the company or individual is under investigation for an apparent violation of import and export laws, and it specifies the conduct at issue and the EAR that is allegedly being violated.
Before June 2, 2022, a BIS charging letter was sent to the company under investigation in secret. Since June 2, 2022, the BIS/OEE may make the charging letter available to the public. In publicly announcing the Charging Letters, BIS wants to ensure that the exporting community and public writ large know who is allegedly violating regulations. It also incentivizes those who may be in violation to cease and voluntarily self-disclose such violations.
Thus, the BIS Charging Letters List contains names of individuals or companies that have received a Charging Letter from the BIS/OEE for alleged violations of US import and export regulations and are under investigation for doing so.
The original list can be found at the following link: Charging Letters (doc.gov)
Which companies should screen against the BIS Charging Letters?
Screening against this list is at the company’s discretion.
Do you need to license this list if you use third-party content in Compliance Screening?
If you screen your business partners against restricted party list content from third parties – such as Reguvis or Dow Jones – in your AEB Compliance Screening application, the BIS Charging Letters may already be included in your content. In that case you do not need to license this list separately/additionally. For more information, please contact your content provider.
Efficient restricted party list screening – BIS Charging Letters and more: How can AEB help?
The AEB Compliance Screening Module takes care of the restricted party list screening against the BIS Charging Letters List and performs the screening automatically in the background – upon request also integrated into SAP®, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and other ERP and CRM systems. Please find an overview of AEB's available restricted party lists here.
- If you wish to include the BIS Charging Letters in your Compliance Screening, please request a non-binding quotation. Via the form, you can also contact a product expert.