Gary Grumble

I’m noted as a reasonable sort of guy, I mean when, recently, that blind man tripped me up with his white stick, accidentally, of course, I took a softly softly approach, I only punched him once.

I am however hot under the collar with some of UK’s exporters, the ones who buy from the USA or buy goods/ technology with U.S. Intellectual Property Rights (IPR). Some of them get so paranoid about U.S. export and re-export controls such as the military ones that are caught under what is known as ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) under the control of the U.S. Dept.of State that they seem to clean forget that they are themselves English (or British). They are that busy ploughing through ITAR that they forget that their first responsibility is to comply with U.K.and E.C. regulations and they in some cases when questioned about their U.K. licencing system point to the U.S approval and say “There you are Mr. Customs man, our U.S. friends have said it is OK to re-export from the U.K.”

We know that failure to comply with U.S. controls can be very damaging, there have been some multi million dollar fines imposed on some U.K defense companies, it would be stupid for a company to get itself published in the U.S. Federal Register for transgressions because that could lead to the company being blacklisted and no U.S. company would be allowed to trade with them which could lead to bankruptcy. However achieving a balance is the best option, achieve a satisfactory level of compliance with both sides of the Atlantic and breathe easy or at least breathe easier.