Kevin Wolf Quoted by Washington Post and Reuters on Recent NSO Group Blacklisting
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Akin Gump international trade partner Kevin Wolf has been quoted by The Washington Post and Reuters regarding the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security’s (BIS) recent addition of Israeli spyware company NSO Group to its “entity list.”
In the Post’s article, “Biden administration blacklists NSO Group over Pegasus spyware,” the publication notes that the company was blacklisted from receiving American technologies, after BIS determined that its “phone-hacking tools had been used by foreign governments to “maliciously target” government officials, activists, journalists, academics and embassy workers around the world.”
Beyond the prohibition of American technologies, the entity list designation could also impact NGO’s future business arrangements, according to the publication. Wolf, a former Commerce Department Assistant Secretary of Export Administration, agreed, saying “The impact is broader than just the legal prohibition. It’s a huge red flag.”
Wolf echoed this comment in Reuter’s article, “U.S. blacklists Israeli hacking tool vendor NSO Group,” saying, “Many companies choose to avoid doing business with listed entities completely in order to eliminate the risk of an inadvertent violation and the costs of conducting complex legal analyses.”
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