Ready, Aim, Fire: India Adopts the Wassenaar Arrangement Control Lists

New defense licensing procedures issued as well!

Last month, India’s export control system underwent a significant overhaul that should help to facilitate India’s future admission into the Wassenaar Arrangement. The issuance of Notification No. 5/2015-2020 dated 24 April 2017 (in force as of May 1) served to significantly revise India’s primary dual-use and military-related control list, known as the Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment, and Technologies or SCOMET List. The notification added and revised numerous chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile-related entries to the SCOMET List. More importantly, the notification established a comprehensive “Munitions List” (SCOMET Category 6) as well as an entirely new SCOMET Category 8 that lists all the conventional dual-use items designated by the Wassenaar Arrangement. The modifications set forth in the notification enact export controls on a broad swath of goods and technologies that were not previously subject to regulatory controls in India. Additionally, the notification transforms the way in which defense-related items are licensed in India. The Indian government has recently introduced new licensing procedures for exports of defense-related items housed in SCOMET Category 6. In fact, the licensing authority, submission process, review criteria, decision-making, and timeline for defense-related exports have undergone substantial changes. These changes can potentially complicate your company’s classification and license determination efforts and increase the possibility of non-compliance when conducting dual-use or defense-related trade in India.

This webinar is intended to help companies that have operations, affiliates, subsidiaries, customers, suppliers, or facilities in India to better understand and navigate India’s unique, complex, and quickly-evolving export control system. If you are currently (or hoping to be) doing business in any potentially controlled commodity sector in or with India, you need to be aware of, and prepared for, the recent changes to India’s export controls, and this webinar can help!

This webinar will be especially valuable to enterprises that seek to:

• Determine the potential compliance costs and risks to business operations involving dual-use and defense goods and technologies in India;

• “Localize” existing trade compliance programs to adhere to Indian legal/regulatory requirements and procedures (particularly with respect to defense-related trade);

• Fully understand the impact of recent legal-regulatory changes to India’s control list and the defense export licensing process;

• Classify commodities in accordance with the Indian classification nomenclature system;

• Shift operations and export dual-use or defense equipment and materials out of India to a new location;

• Conduct (or plan to initiate) R&D activities in India or transfer controlled technology out of the country;

• Source components or export spare parts and/or components from India;

• Exhibit or test and evaluate defense-related products within India;

• Develop collaborative projects or relationships with Indian defense or aerospace firms;

• Initiate or develop defense/military cooperation agreements with Indian defense firms or the Indian Ministry of Defence (MOD); and

• Recognize how India’s export control system compares to and differs from those of the United States (U.S.) and European Union (EU).

This webinar is designed to provide the following:

• A thorough review of recent legal-regulatory changes to the Indian export control system, with an emphasis on the changes to the SCOMET List and the Indian defense export licensing process;

• An item-by-item analysis of new SCOMET List additions/revisions/deletions and the potential implications of these changes for your enterprise;

• Practical tips for determining whether your products are subject to Indian export controls and for maintaining the proper classifications of your products against the SCOMET List;

• A review of how the SCOMET List compares to U.S. and EU control list item coding and how to easily classify a product with an established ECCN according to the SCOMET List (focus on Wassenaar Munitions and Conventional Dual-Use List-based items now found in SCOMET Categories 6 and 8);

• Insight into duplicative or overlapping entries and definitions on the SCOMET List that can serve to confuse or complicate commodity classification efforts in India;

• A review of Indian end-use/user certification (EUC) requirements for defense-related exports;

• A summary of Indian “catch-all” controls and their applicability to exports destined for a military end-use or end-user;

• An outline of the defense export license application process (license submission process, documentation, review, processing, timeline, terms and conditions, appeals, and record-keeping);

• A summary of potential penalties for non-compliance with Indian dual-use and defense-related export controls; and

• Contact information, resources, and support tools (FAQs, handbooks, guidelines, etc.) to assist company efforts to apply for a license or classify commodities in India, including URLs and links to the updated SCOMET List and other regulations and resources discussed during the webinar.

This webinar will provide PowerPoint slides and include live video and commentary from Ryan Cathie who has worked with industry, nongovernmental organizations, and foreign governments on a variety of trade control matters throughout the world. Webinar participants will be invited to submit questions during the webinar; the final 30 minutes of the webinar will be allotted to answering attendees questions.