California Company
Settles Charges of Unlicensed Exports

The U.S. Department of Commerce today announced that General Monitors of Lake Forest, California, agreed to pay a $40,000 civil penalty to settle charges that it violated the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) when it failed to obtain the required export licenses for shipments of gas and fire detection equipment to India.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) charged that in December 1998, General Monitors exported gas and fire detection equipment on six occasions without the required Department of Commerce (DOC) licenses to Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) in Hyderabad, India. BIS also charged that on 12 occasions between 1998 and 2001, General Monitors falsely indicated that shipments to BHEL did not require an export license on Shipper’s Export Declarations (SEDs) accompanying shipments to BHEL.

At the time of the export, BHEL was on BIS’s Entity List and exports to BHEL therefore required prior authorization. The Entity List is a compilation of end users who have been determined to present an unacceptable risk of diversion to developing weapons of mass destruction or missiles used to deliver these weapons. All exports to those appearing on the Entity List require licenses. BIS maintains the Entity List to inform the public of the export license requirements related to these entities.

General Monitors voluntarily self-disclosed some of the violations and cooperated with the investigation.

Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Julie L. Myers commended Special Agent Christina Murphy of BIS’s Los Angeles Field Office for her efforts in the investigation.