Export Compliance During a Government Shutdown

The phone calls started coming in last week: "I've got a shipment going out tomorrow, but I can't run a restricted party screening because the Consolidated List is offline due to the government shutdown. What should I do?"

Kudos to these exporters for knowing and understanding their export compliance responsibilities. Among those responsibilities is a restriction on doing business with entities the government deems a danger to U.S. interests.

Failure to comply is a violation of U.S. law and can result in civil or criminal prosecution, as well as denial of exporting privileges. I doubt very strongly that a government shutdown will be an acceptable excuse for violating the law.

Restricted Party Screening Trade Wizard

If your company is looking for a reliable way to complete your screenings during the shutdown (and hopefully beyond), Shipping Solutions' Restricted Party Screening (RPS) Trade Wizard allows you to quickly check all the parties in your export transaction against more than 140 different restricted party lists, way more than the number of lists included in the government's Consolidated Screening List (even when it's up and running).

The RPS Wizard relies on sophisticated algorithms that identify the close matches in your screening process, including misspellings, alternate spellings, different formats for addresses, and company names. It provides a more comprehensive review of each list and an indication of the likelihood of a potential match.

Of course it tells you if there’s a 100% match on a name or address; more importantly, it tells you if a contact is a 95% match or a 72% match or some other potential match. With that information, you can make more informed decisions about your potential international business partners.

Importantly, all your screenings are saved in an Audit Trail, so you have proof that you are attempting to comply with U.S. export regulations. That way, if the Office of Export Enforcement, the FBI, or some other agency visits your office to audit your exports, you can demonstrate that you are doing your due diligence to comply with the regulations, which is a strong mitigating factor against penalties.

Don't let the government shutdown put your company at risk. Sign up now for a free trial subscription to the RPS Trade Wizard and get back to screening your export contacts right away. There is absolutely no obligation to sign up for a full subscription to the service. However, we think you'll quickly see the benefits of a more powerful, more reliable RPS tool.

Additional Resources

For more information about the Shipping Solutions RPS Trade Wizard, about restricted party screening in general, and your other export compliance responsibilities, check out these additional resources:

• The Art of Using an Effective Restricted Party Screening Program for Your Exports
• How Does Restricted Party Screening Software Work?
• How to Respond to a Denied Party Screening Match
• Export Compliance: Understanding Restricted Party Screening
• Six Basic Steps for Export Compliance
• What You Need to Know about Export Compliance (free white paper)