Commerce offers consolidated export-screening tool

The CSL is a compilation of nine different ‘screening lists’ from the Commerce, State and Treasury departments.    The U.S. Commerce Department has released a new web search tool to help U.S. companies easily search the federal government’s Consolidated Screening List (CSL). 
   The CSL is a compilation of nine different “screening lists” from the Commerce, State and Treasury departments that contains names of individuals and companies with whom a U.S. company may not be allowed to do business due to U.S. export regulations, sanctions or other restrictions.
   The CSL is available on the Trade Developers Portal Application Programming Interface (API) in an “open, machine-readable format,” Commerce said. 
   “By making the CSL available as an API, developers and designers can create new tools, websites or mobile apps to access the list and display the results, supporting private-sector innovation to help disseminate this critical information in ways most helpful to business users,” the department added.
   Commerce urges U.S. companies to consult the CSL before doing business with a foreign entity to ensure it is not “flagged” on any of the agency lists. The U.S. agencies that maintain these lists have targeted the entities for various national security and foreign policy reasons, including illegally exporting arms, violating U.S. sanctions and trafficking narcotics. The consolidated list includes more than 8,000 company and individual names and their aliases.
   “If a company or individual appears on the list, U.S. firms must do further research into the individual or company in accordance with the administering agency’s rules before doing business with them,” Commerce said.
   Visit https://developer.trade.gov/consolidated-screening-list.html for more details about this search tool, CSL or APL.