The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has issued a Final Rule that redesignates regulations governing the procedures for the review of certain transactions involving information and communications technology and services (ICTS) designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary and which pose or may pose undue or unacceptable risks to the United States or U.S. persons. The regulations being redesignated were originally administered by the Office of the Secretary, but were formally transferred to BIS when the Office of ICTS (OICTS) was established on March 15, 2022. This final rule simply redesignates the regulations that were promulgated as 15 C.F.R. part 7 of Subtitle A – “Office of the Secretary of Commerce” – to Subtitle B – “Regulations Relating to Commerce and Foreign Trade.” Within Subtitle B, chapter VII includes other regulations that implement BIS authorities. This final rule also establishes Subchapter E and creates a new part 791 for ICTS’s regulations.
These overall regulations are the result of a May 2019 Executive Order on the topic of ICTS and resulting regulations for review and potential blocking of such transactions. For additional background see Thompson Hine Updates of December 2, 2019 and May 16, 2019. BIS states this final rule seeks only to clarify that BIS is responsible for implementation of the ICTS regulations, and that “[t]his shift in no way impacts the content or text of current and proposed regulations. Because of this, publication of this final rule is merely procedural.”