2008/07/05
By: Danielle McClellan
John Black’s Advice to Export Administrators: This is a story about violations that most ITAR exporters make. 读它, be thankful it wasn’t your company that got nailed, and use this information to motivate your company to improve its ITAR agreement administration. 确定, the dollar values and quantities related to the Boeing agreements might be higher than what you do under your agreements, but the lesson is still there.
The Boeing Company has been fined $3 million for 40 violations of the AECA and ITAR that they voluntarily disclosed to DDTC. In the charging letter it is said that the voluntary disclosure was taken into account, however Boeing’s “record in effectively administering, updating and reviewing its agreements has been consistently flawed”.
The company was charged 20 times for violations of the terms of the company’s manufacturing licensing agreements (MLA). Over the course of about 15 years Boeing manufactured hardware in excess of the approved amounts of its MLA. At various points in time Boeing’s unauthorized manufacture amounted to more than $4 billion worth of hardware when it was only authorized at most $100 million. Large amounts of unapproved manufacturing continued from 1999 well into 2006.
Boeing did not request approvals for MLA amendments for the excess amounts of manufacturing that occurred on a continuous basis. Of the few approval amendments the company did submit they failed to show the actual value they had already manufactured. When they disclosed the 20 MLA violations DDTC charged Boeing with an additional 10 violations for failing submit for approval amendments. DDTC also charged them with 5 violations of omitting material facts about the values of the agreements that they did submit.
Boeing was also hit with an additional 5 violations for failing to keep track of their executed agreements and amendments that had been submitted to DDTC, failing to submit non-Transfer and Use Certificates and the list goes on for clerical mishaps.
The charging letter states that, “if the Respondent [Boeing] had not undertaken these actions [voluntary self disclosure], charges against and penalties imposed upon the Respondent would likely be more significant.”
更多信息:
DDTC’s Charging Letter (PDF)