Federal Reports

Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Investment Management's Disclosure Review Program, Report No. 590

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

The audit objectives were to determine whether program funds were managed in accordance with the ARC and Federal grant requirements.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) administers and enforces U.S. export regulations to control the export of goods and technologies for national security and foreign policy purposes. Our objective for this audit was to assess the effectiveness of BIS actions to detect violations of export controls for Russia and Belarus in fiscal years 2022 and 2023.

BIS prevents the diversion or misuse of export-controlled items abroad by conducting pre-license checks and post-shipment verifications—collectively known as end-use checks—on foreign end users for individual export transactions, to help ensure that U.S. exports are being used as intended and to assess the legitimacy of end users.

Overall, we found that BIS needs to strengthen its end-use check process to prevent restricted shipments to Russia and Belarus. Specifically, we found weaknesses in BIS methods to identify and select high-risk shipments for end-use checks; document results and assign final ratings of compliance with export control regulations; and complete enforcement actions to hold potential violators of export controls accountable. These weaknesses undermine the transparency and accountability of BIS’s regulatory oversight and underscore the need for improvements to strengthen and modernize the end-use check process.

We made six recommendations to strengthen and modernize the end-use check process.