Blackwater to pay $42 million for export violations

Blackwater to pay $42 million for export violations    Xe Services, the private security contractor formerly known as Blackwater, has agreed to pay $42 million to settle charges of violating arms export control laws, the State Department said Monday.
   The department said Xe committed 288 violations of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations involving the unauthorized export of defense items and provision of defense services to foreign-end users in multiple countries from 2003 to 2009. The violations did not involve sensitive technologies or cause a known harm to national security, according to a news release, but the items do require licenses before they can be exported.
   Many of the alleged violations occurred while Xe was providing service under contract to the State and Defense departments and other U.S. government agencies.
   The State Department said $12 million of the total civil penalty would be suspended if Xe follows through on correcting internal compliance procedures to prevent further export violations.
   The department said it would not debar Xe from further government work or deny license applications, as is general policy, because it is satisfied the company has taken the necessary steps to identify compliance problems and resolve them. Those steps include:
   ' Replacing senior management.
   ' Establishing an Independent Export Compliance Committee to oversee remedial compliance efforts.
   ' Improving ITAR compliance procedures.
   ' Providing ITAR training to employees.
   ' Conducting a targeted ITAR audit to confirm the effectiveness of its compliance measures.
   If the case had been handled as a criminal matter and Xe was found guilty it would have been barred from future government contracts. Global supply chain management company Agility, for example, has been suspended from future U.S. government contracts until a criminal fraud case against it has been resolved.
   The violations in the Blackwater civil case included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for Taiwanese police officers, the New York Times reported on Friday.
   The company also shipped automatic weapons and other military equipment for use by its personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan in violation of export controls, and in some cases sought to hide its actions, the government charged, according to the paper. In one incident, Blackwater shipped weapons to Iraq hidden inside containers of dog food.
   Blackwater achieved notoriety in Iraq for several instances of alleged excessive use of force, including an incident that left several Iraqi civilians dead. ' Eric Kulisch