BIS Entity List: Burma Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Home Affairs, MEC, and MEHL

Mechanism

BIS amended Supplement No. 4 to Part 744 of the EAR (the Entity List) by adding four Burma-destination entries with the following profile:

The "all items subject to EAR / presumption of denial / no license exceptions" combination is the most restrictive Entity List posture available to BIS. Unlike many Entity List entries that restrict only specific ECCNs, these four entries impose a blanket license requirement covering every item on the Commerce Control List as well as EAR99 items.

MEC and MEHL are the two military conglomerates that dominate Burma's commercial economy. MEHL is directly owned by the Burmese military (Tatmadaw) and funds the Ministry of Defence's budget through dividends; MEC is a similar vehicle primarily owned by active-duty military personnel. Both entities have extensive interests across mining, manufacturing, tourism, banking, construction, and real estate — creating a broad-based revenue engine for the coup leadership.

Context and timing

This rule was published one month after the February 1, 2021 SAC military coup and two weeks after Executive Order 14014 (February 10, 2021, "Blocking Property With Respect to the Situation in Burma"), which was the Treasury-side IEEPA authority EO establishing the Burma sanctions program (31 CFR Part 525). BIS acted in parallel to Treasury by imposing EAR-side controls on the same core coup entities before the more specific Treasury designations (OFAC's SDN listings, sector determinations, and Directive 1 on MOGE) were finalized over the following months.

This was the first BIS Entity List action specifically targeting Burmese state entities responsible for the coup. It was followed by:

• April 9, 2021 — BIS rule extending military-intelligence end-use/end-user controls to

Burma (FR Doc 2021-07357), covering the Office of Chief of Military Security Affairs (OCMSA) and Directorate of Signal

• July 6, 2021 — BIS rule adding four more Burma-based entities (King Royal Technologies;

Myanmar Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd.; Myanmar Yang Tse Copper Ltd.; Wanbao Mining Ltd.) linked to military-conglomerate revenue flows

Downstream implications

• Any U.S. or non-U.S. person exporting, reexporting, or transferring any EAR-controlled

item (including low-ECCN and EAR99 items not subject to any other licence requirement) to MoD, MOHA, MEC, or MEHL requires a BIS licence — and will be denied

• The blanket scope effectively severs US-origin technology access for the military and its

commercial arms across all sectors in which MEC and MEHL operate (mining, manufacturing, banking, real estate, hospitality)

• Downstream enforcement risk for non-US companies that source US-origin components and

supply into MEC/MEHL procurement chains — the EAR extraterritorial reach applies

• The March 2021 listing preceded Treasury's OFAC targeting of the same entities, creating

a dual-agency chokepoint: BIS on goods/technology flows, OFAC on financial services

Open questions

• Whether the EO 14014 asset-blocking program (31 CFR Part 525) has been used to impose

OFAC SDN designations directly on MEC and MEHL (as of 2024 MEHL remained unsanctioned by OFAC directly, though its subsidiaries and parent Myanmar Economic Holdings affiliates were targeted piecemeal)

• Whether subsequent US-person activity restrictions under the military-intelligence

end-use rule (FR Doc 2021-07357) operate independently of or in conjunction with the Entity List controls on MoD/MOHA