To ensure export, re-export, and transfer decisions are consistent with the export controls, it is strongly suggested that companies develop a set of formal written policies and procedures - - an Export Management and Compliance Program Manual -- that provides sufficient
safeguards at each key step in the supply chain management to guard against sales of sensitive or dual-use technology to unauthorized parties or for unauthorized activities. The policies and procedures should be applied throughout the entire organization of the company, including any separate divisions and subsidiaries, and cover in step-by-step detail, each of the nine key EMCP elements. By documenting in writing the company’s export policies and procedures in a Manual and providing training on its export management and compliance program, a company can have a comfortable level of assurance that employees know what is expected of them and understand how their actions contribute to ensuring that the company’s compliance program works.
The Manual should serve as the standard operating procedure guidelines for all company employees. A written Manual is also critical to ensuring consistent training and education for employees throughout a company. There are three key areas companies want to consider when developing a Manual:
(1) appropriate content; (2) wide distribution; and
(3) a mechanism for keeping the information up-to-date.
Large companies may consider developing a corporate-level Manual with the company policies and procedures that apply to all units of the organization. However, each individual business unit would need to build upon the corporate-level Manual by describing the policies and procedures that are tailored to the specific business operations and compliance
requirements of the individual business unit. All individual compliance Manuals should be reviewed and cleared by the highest level export compliance authority in the company to ensure that the Manual is consistent with overall company policy and procedures.
Build and maintain your EMCP Manual by eliciting the input and expertise of the members of your EMCP Task Force (see Introduction, above). Since your Task Force members represent the corporate stakeholding entities involved in the export process, they’ll provide essential process-specific perspectives which will make and keep the EMCP Manual relevant and useful. Ensure fluid backward and forward links of communication between members of the Task Force through developing strategies with them, keeping each other updated,
supporting them in all ways possible, and involving them in all nine key elements of the EMCP. In so doing, it will also clarify to all in the company that compliance is a
collaborative endeavor, and the corporate culture of compliance will be commensurately enhanced.
Written Policies and Procedures: Content
Effective export management and compliance program Manuals document export control and compliance policies and procedures including policies and procedures for:
▪ Interactive day-to-day management and oversight, including the statement of management commitment to export compliance from the President or CEO;
▪ Contact list of export compliance managers and employees including their individual areas of responsibility;
▪ Organizational chart showing the export management and compliance structure; ▪ Standards of conduct and ethics;
▪ Assessing levels of risk associated with export transactions; ▪ Maintaining the written EMCP Manual;
▪ Training for all employees engaged, either directly or indirectly, with exports; ▪ Order processing;
▪ Licensing of exports and reexports;
▪ Staying informed of updates on export control laws and regulations;
▪ Product classification, including all current product classification and product/license matrices;
▪ Technical data retention and security; ▪ Adherence to product/country conditions; ▪ Shipping procedures;
▪ Tracking all orders; ▪ Offshore procurement;
▪ Sample forms and instructions for filling them out and how to process;
▪ Screening all inquires, orders, parties to transactions, and activities to ensure compliance; ▪ Evaluating interactions with foreign national customers and employees;
▪ Foreign travel requirements;
▪ Generating and maintaining complete documentation for all export transactions; ▪ Auditing/assessing program operations;
▪ Detecting and reporting noncompliant activity, and taking corrective action; and ▪ Summaries of applicable export laws and regulations.
Distribution and Updates
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to the integrity of all export decisions. A Manual that contains the most current company policy and procedures and provides employees with the required information, tools, and resources to do their jobsis an integral component of a company’s quality control assurance for consistent and accurate export transactions.
As you and your team draft the chapters of your EMCP Manual, remember to address the six essential questions regarding implementation: who, what, where, when, why, and how, because only by providing all the detailed step-by-step processes can the written Manual be effectively implemented and made operational. Think through and address the kinds of questions your staffs are likely to ask: How exactly should this task be done? What’s next? What if this or that happens? Think through and address as many contingencies as possible in the Manual, so folks don’t find themselves scrambling for instructions when there’s little time to plan properly. Mitigation of administrative fines by BIS only occurs when the EMCP is well implemented.
Write the Manual so that someone unfamiliar with your company’s EMCP processes would be able to understand what you do and how you do it, and even be able to pick up where you might leave off. It’s easy to take processes for granted when you deal with them on a day-to- day basis, but if you painstakingly document your processes, you’ll also be well prepared for an audit or assessment, whether by an inside or an outside entity.
Include guidance that is specific to specific tasks and specific business units, but also tie it all together, in order that your staffs understand the big picture, too, i.e., how they fit into the whole process, and how all depend on all. Remind your staffs that through export
compliance, in addition to ensuring the sustainability and longevity of your company, you’re also ensuring that our U.S.-origin dual-use goods and technologies are not used against us, and in so ensuring, all who deal with export transactions, public-sector and private-sector, have a national-security component to their jobs.