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Ambassador Robert Holleyman is the president and CEO of Crowell & Moring International and a partner in Crowell & Moring’s International Trade, and Privacy and Security groups. He advises clients on a range of trade and investment issues, including market access, global trade negotiations, tariffs, cross-border data flows, and privacy/cybersecurity, among other matters.

Proposed U.S. Outbound Investment Regulations

The Outbound Investment Program will be implemented through regulations issued by Treasury that will require notification for, or will otherwise prohibit U.S. persons from undertaking, certain transactions involving “covered national security products or technologies” and entities connected to a “country of concern.” Accordingly – concurrent with the Executive Order – Treasury released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that provides some potential definitions of these terms, but the exact definitions and the details of the regulations will be developed through public notice and comment that concludes on September 28, 2023. Treasury also published a Fact Sheet that provides additional information on the proposed details and scope of the outbound investment prohibitions and notification requirements, which will likely not be finalized until 2024 sometime after Treasury has published draft regulations and gathered another round of public comments.

Continue Reading Executive Order and Rulemaking on U.S. Outbound Investment

On July 21, 2023, the Biden administration announced that seven companies leading the development of artificial intelligence (AI) — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI — have made voluntary commitments, which the companies agreed to undertake immediately, to help move towards safe, secure, and transparent development of AI technology. The goal of the voluntary commitments, or the “AI Agreement” as it is informally dubbed, is to establish a set of standards that promote the principles of safety, security, and trust deemed fundamental to the future of AI.

Continue Reading Private Sector Helps Lead the Way: Biden-Harris Administration Secures Voluntary Commitments from Leading Artificial Intelligence Companies to Manage the Risks Posed by AI