Eric Baird, former CEO of Access USA Shipping, has received the largest BIS penalty to ever be imposed on an individual. The Florida-based man has agreed to pay $17 million for willful violations of the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) regulations.
Baird plead guilty to 166 counts of administrative violations for misrepresenting values and item descriptions in order to hide exports that would have required a BIS license. Details available at http://euvzk8.web-sitemap.ag-edg.com/blog/2018/12/23/ceo-pleads-guilty-to-export-violations-and-agrees-to-pay-17-million/ and http://euvzk8.web-sitemap.ag-edg.com/blog/2017/03/30/florida-company-fined-27-million-for-150-intentional-ear-violations/.
Baird founded Access USA and developed the business model of providing foreign customers with a US address so that they could acquire US origin items for export without alerting US merchants of the item’s ultimate destinations. Over the course of several years Baird instructed employees to falsify shipping documents and had them purchase items for customers using their personal credit cards and have the items shipped to their homes to hide the real recipient of the goods. Baird was “willingly and intentionally” breaking the law. Baird also faces a five-year suspension of his export privileges and it is expected that he will be sentenced to two years of probation during his sentencing.