15 March, 2016

Alpha Trade Management Database: a new tool to help companies monitor exposure to dual-use goods

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Project Alpha is pleased to introduce Alpha-TMD : a new tool to help monitor corporate exposure to restricted dual-use goods.

Global sanctions measures against countries like Iran and North Korea make it essential for firms to monitor their exposure to trade involving dual-use goods and technology: those items that can be used for legitimate industrial purposes, but could also contribute to building weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Ignoring international restrictions on the supply and brokering of dual-use goods can lead to hefty penalties, not to mention the reputational damage that comes from assisting WMD proliferation.

But monitoring trade and financial systems for dual-use technology of WMD concern is not easy. The technology control lists mandated by multilateral organisations like the Nuclear Suppliers Group are fragmented, highly-technical in nature and often unstructured. Moreover, they are not easily compatible with systems used in the anti-money laundering and due diligence context.

To help companies overcome these hurdles, Project Alpha has created Alpha-TMD (Trade Monitoring Database), a structured database of controlled dual-use technology. Alpha-TMD has collated all of the chemicals, materials and technologies controlled under the main dual-use technology export control regimes (the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Australia Group) – more than 600 dual-use items in total. 

Each dual-use item in Alpha-TMD is listed with the following information:

-          Control regime status;

-          Item description or rationale for control;

-          Keywords to identify controlled technology, each developed by Project Alpha experts;

-          ‘Not’ keywords and Boolean search terms to reduce false positives;

-          Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) reference numbers for chemicals and metals;

-          A qualitative assessment of each item’s broader industrial utility beyond the WMD context (low, medium or high), to help companies decide whether to regulate or block trade in these items.

We believe that Alpha-TMD can help companies working in the trade, shipping and financial space maintain their compliance obligations with respect to trade in dual-use goods, and would be pleased to discuss its pricing and availability.

Please contact Ian Stewart (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) for further information.

 

 

Read 3108 times Last modified on 15 March, 2016
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