Bipartisan Senators Propose Bill for Fair Export Licensing

WASHINGTON: A bipartisan duo of U.S. senators unveiled a bill on Wednesday aimed at ensuring fair export licensing practices. The legislation, introduced by Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, and Senator Rick Scott, a Republican, seeks to create a level playing field for U.S. companies seeking licenses to sell technology overseas.

This proposal comes in response to criticism faced by the Commerce Department for previously granting export licenses to Intel and Qualcomm for selling chips to Huawei. The agency did not approve similar requests from competitors MediaTek and AMD, raising concerns of favoritism. The Biden administration later revoked Intel and Qualcomm’s licenses, yet worries about unfair competition have persisted.

According to the text of the bill, “Monopoly licenses have the potential to create serious distortion in the market, exacerbate economic and security vulnerabilities, and undermine fairness in the export licensing regime.” If the legislation is passed, the Commerce Department will be required to conduct a “competitive market review” when evaluating license requests. This review will aim to determine if the exporter might become the exclusive provider for a potential buyer.

The bill stipulates that a license can only be approved if no other rival has applied for a similar license for the same customer. This move is intended to prevent any single company from monopolizing exports of critical technology.

The Commerce Department had not responded to requests for comment as of the time of this report.