Dual-use export controls
A regime that makes the export of goods and software usable for both civilian and military purposes, including cyber-surveillance tools, subject to authorization, and can make a contract impossible to perform overnight.
Dual-use items are goods, software and technologies that can have both civilian and military uses. Their export outside the European Union is governed by Regulation (EU) 2021/821, applicable since September 9, 2021, which recast the earlier regime. A common list, taken from international control arrangements, makes these items subject to prior authorization; a catch-all clause also lets authorities require a license for an unlisted item when it is intended for military use, internal repression or, as a new feature of the recast, cyber-surveillance that violates human rights. For insurance the regime shows up in three places. In credit and political risk insurance, the refusal or withdrawal of an export license is a classic trigger for contract frustration. In transport, goods exported without authorization can be seized, and the loss then falls under the exclusion for the insured's unlawful acts. And in directors' liability, selling surveillance tools to a repressive regime exposes the company and its officers to criminal prosecution.
In June 2021, four executives of the French company Amesys and its successor were placed under formal investigation in Paris for complicity in torture, for having supplied Gaddafi's Libyan regime, from 2007 onward, with an electronic communications surveillance system used to identify opponents.
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