U.S. government and defense contractor Honeywell have reached a settlement over alleged violations of portions of the Arms Export Control Act, or AECA, and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, or ITAR. The matter at hand had to do with Honeywell’s alleged unauthorized export of dozens of technical drawings relating to components of various aircraft, missiles, and tanks, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, the B-1B bomber, the Tomahawk cruise missile, and the M1A1 Abrams, to multiple countries, including China. American officials contend that some of the disclosures harmed national security, something that Honeywell denies.
The U.S. State Department announced the deal, in which Honeywell agreed to pay $13 million in civil penalties, among other things. Of that amount, the payment of $5 million was immediately suspended on the condition that the company put it toward “remedial compliance measures.” In addition, the U.S. government chose not to pursue more serious action based on Honeywell “voluntarily” disclosing the exports that violated the AECA and ITAR, which the State Department also continues to describe as alleged as a result of the settlement.
The settlement demonstrates the Department’s role in strengthening U.S. industry by protecting U.S.-origin defense articles, including technical data, from unauthorized exports,” according to a press release from the State Department. “The settlement also highlights the importance of obtaining appropriate authorization from the Department for exporting controlled articles.”
“Honeywell voluntarily disclosed to the Department the alleged violations that are resolved under this settlement. Honeywell also acknowledged the serious nature of the alleged violations, cooperated with the Department’s review, and instituted a number of compliance program improvements during the course of the Department’s review,” according to that statement. “For these reasons, the Department has determined that it is not appropriate to administratively debar Honeywell at this time.”
The charging document in the case, now made public through the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, says that “Honeywell ultimately identified 71 ITAR-controlled drawings that between July 2011 and October 2015 it had exported without authorization,” in a disclosure it voluntarily made in 2016. Two years later, the firm acknowledged a second set of unapproved exports “that were similar to the violations disclosed in the first voluntary disclosure,” according to the State Department.
All of these alleged exports had to do with drawings that “contained engineering prints showing layouts, dimensions, and geometries for manufacturing castings and finished parts for multiple aircraft, military electronics, and gas turbine engines” used on various aircraft and ground vehicles. The documents were shared via DEXcenter, “a file exchange platform” that the Honeywell employees in question typically use to “transfer drawings to suppliers.”
That document includes the following list of impacted platforms, with a caveat that this was only some of the examples, rather than a full accounting:
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
B-1B Lancer Long-Range Strategic Bomber
F-22 Fighter Aircraft
C-130 Military Transport Aircraft
A-7H Corsair Aircraft
A-10 Aircraft
Apache Longbow Helicopter
M1A1 Abrams Tank
Tactical Tomahawk Missile
T55 Turboshaft Engine
It’s worth pointing out that the A-7H was a variant of the A-7E developed specifically for Greece’s Hellenic Air Force and that the Corsair II series, as a whole, has been out of U.S. military service now for decades. The Greeks formally retired the last of their A-7s in 2014.
Sources : The Drive
