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The Commerce Department's Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement, F. Amanda DeBusk, announced today that MKD International, Inc., a Nashville, Tenn. paper broker, agreed to a $10,000 civil penalty to settle allegations by the Department's Office of Antiboycott Compliance that MKD committed two violations of the antiboycott provisions of the Export Administration Regulations.
The Office of Antiboycott Compliance alleged that, in a 1993 transaction, MKD sent shipping instructions to its U.S. supplier that goods made in the U.S. and sold to Lebanon were not to be loaded on blacklisted vessels. MKD also, through an agent, furnished information about another person's business relationships with a boycotted country when its agent provided a certificate that the shipping company would not load goods on blacklisted vessels.
This transaction involved three additional U.S. companies: the supplier, the freight forwarder and the shipping agent. Each company has entered into a settlement with the Department's antiboycott office.
MKD agreed to pay $4000 of the civil penalty. Based on financial information furnished by the company, the Department agreed to suspend the remaining $6,000 of the civil penalty for one year subject to MKD's full compliance with the EAR. MKD neither admitted nor denied the allegations.
The antiboycott provisions prohibit U.S. companies and individuals from complying with certain aspects of unsanctioned foreign boycotts against any country friendly to the United States that is not itself the object of any U.S. boycott. Through its Office of Antiboycott Compliance, the Commerce Department investigates alleged violations, provides support in administrative or criminal litigation of cases, and prepares cases for settlement.
In April of 2002 the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) changed its name to the Bureau of Industry and Security(BIS). For historical purposes we have not changed the references to BXA in the legacy documents found in the Archived Press and Public Information.