GAO: Better agency coordination needed for export investigations

GAO: Better agency coordination needed for export investigations A congressional watchdog agency said federal agencies responsible for investigating export violations must do a better job at working together.
   These agencies reside within the Commerce, Homeland Security, State and Justice departments. The agencies’ enforcement activities are based on complex laws and regulations, which give concurrent jurisdiction to multiple agencies to conduct investigations.
   “Coordination and cooperation often hinge on the relationships individual investigators across agencies have developed,” the Government Accountability Office said in a report released on Wednesday. “Other challenges include obtaining timely and complete information to determine whether violations have occurred and enforcement actions should be pursued, and the difficulty in balancing multiple priorities and leveraging finite human resources.”
   The GAO report also criticized the Commerce and State departments for not sharing the outcomes of their criminal cases. “Without information on the outcomes of criminal cases, export control agencies cannot gain a complete picture of an individual or a company seeking export licenses or discover trends in illegal export activities,” the report said.