By: John Black
In the February 22, 2010 Federal Register, the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in the State Department announced it has terminated the ineligible status and statutory debarment of ITT Corporation’s Night Vision Division.
Three years ago, in March 2007, ITT pleaded guilty to violating the Arms Export Control Act. The guilty plea was related to ITT-Night Vision Division’s violations involving illegal exports, reexports and retransfers of night vision technology. In a December 2007 consent agreement between DDTC and ITT, the parties agreed to a $100 million penalty and a nearly complete debarment of ITT-Night Vision Division, which prohibited it from exporting any ITAR items, which a few exceptions.
While I have not seen the ITT Night Vision Division’s compliance program, it is reasonable to assume that DDTC would not lift the debarment unless it was completely convinced that ITT Night Vision Division has an air-tight compliance program. Often as a result of consent agreements or settlement agreements, DDTC requires that companies implement amazingly rigorous compliance procedures. Many times such procedures are more burdensome than any company would ever think of putting in place, except, of course, a company in ITT’s shoes.
Who knows, maybe they have even implanted microchips in the brains of all of the engineers at ITT Night Vision so if they even think about ITAR tech data, an instant alert is sent to the export compliance group. Or maybe, the export compliance group tazes anybody who violates compliance policies or the ITAR. Hahaha.
Note: In reference to last month’s article about the business development people who lied several times and, as a result, got their company fined a million dollars, one reader suggested my repeated suggestions to use a taser on business development people were inappropriate. For the record, I would like to make it clear that I am against the tazing of any people, even business development people, unless they deserve it.