Export Compliance Program Introduction
July 8, 2021
(The Exporting Source)
by Blake Gill *
So, you were voluntold into a position of export compliance? Don’t worry,
this is a path that many individuals are forced into. Some even embrace the
challenge and turn the new assignment into a prosperous career. After all,
it’s not every day a child tells their parents they want to be a trade
compliance professional!
When beginning a trade compliance department, the first step should be to
develop an Export Compliance Program or ECP. This program should contain
certain elements and establish how an organization operates in accordance with
the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). Since every company is different,
no two ECPs will be exactly alike. Some ECPs will be more involved and robust
while others may be more concentrated and focused on fewer elements. Some of
the foundational ECP elements are management
commitment, risk assessment, export authorization, recordkeeping, training,
audits, handling potential violations and associated corrective actions, and
finally building and maintaining your ECP. These elements are not an exhaustive
list and the final ECP will depend on your organization’s specific needs.
Now that we have established some fundamental elements that make up an ECP, we
can begin to think about some factors that dictate your organization’s
specific needs. How large is your organization? If the organization is larger
and well established it is beneficial to involve other departments in creating
the ECP, such as the quality control department. What is the organization’s
strategic nature? If one company manufactures hardware and another creates
software, these two companies will likely have very different looking ECPs.
What is the geographic location of the organization and who are the end
customers? A company that is headquartered in the U.S. and only sells to U.S.
companies will have different needs from an international company with offices
around the world. What is the volume of exports that your organization
participates in? A larger volume of exports will increase an organization’s
risk, resulting in a different strategy and ECP than an organization with lower
volume and lower risk. What is the complexity of the internal export processes?
Different departments all being involved in the export process will drastically
change an ECP versus an organization that has a single department handle exports
through the entire process, from order intake to license determination and
shipping.
Now that we have established the basic understanding of what an ECP is and its
purpose, we will do a deep dive into each of the elements. Stay tuned for our
review of each element and how to best approach them!
* Blake Gill is an experienced International Trade Compliance professional with a demonstrated history of work in the technology industry. He has many years of experience working with export control, customer screening and item classification over a wide variety of products. Additionally, Blake has performed the duties of Empowered Official at multiple international companies.
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