ITAR Consultant v/s ITAR Certification: What’s The ‘Real’ Thing To Do?

Author: Linqs Group

The often-asked question about ITAR consultant & ITAR certification has to be answered very thoroughly for businesses to understand the key differentiation. And what does it mean for an exporter to have a consultant that guides through ITAR compliance when shipping defense articles or services or technical data? Let’s learn it right here.

Pros before Joes – the saying has to be there for exporters dealing in defense articles and services. Anyone listening into ITAR certification stuff for a while needs to understand there’s NO authority to provide certification as such. Even if it sounds like an earnestly important thing to do – it’s NOT.

So, what should you do as a business that has to export defense items or technical data? You have to read the documentation provided by the authorities, regulatory bodies, overseeing agencies, etc. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) in US has countless laws, regulations and controls. You need a compliance consultant to keep up with the changing export laws, and cover your entire business from throttling away in a knee-jerk reaction.

Does it mean I have to close my business before I do that? ITAR compliance doesn’t require you to close your business and restart later after followed through. Since it’s a continuous procedure to respond with ever-changing laws, your business needs to have ITAR training for following up with those laws.

ITAR consultants help you with:

  1. ITAR training – Webinars, sessions, learning, etc. under ITAR training helps your executives and employees to understand their roles and make your company healthy and efficient in various operations of the business.

  2. Registration – Whether you produce items, ship or service, you’ll have to do the registration process with the DDTC and other exercises to become compliant. ITAR consultants shall guide through this procedure to have a seamless registration with less to no errors.

  3. Disclosures – Frankly, companies can have the best compliance programs and even then fail at some points. So, it’s better to share a self-disclosure of violations and avoid any trouble later. These voluntary disclosures help you clear up those issues in the past and put your company’s interest back on track.

  4. Software – How to screen dealers, traders, consultants, customers, employees, etc.? Software has changed the world of exports by simplifying screening procedures through dynamically and automatically identifying entities. Your ITAR consultant shall equip you with those solutions to make things simple at your side.

Will I still require an ITAR certification? As explained previously, you don’t require a certification of any kind and neither can any organization provide that.

In order to hire the best consultants for your company, you surely need to interview them and ask a hell lot of questions to be confident. Some of them include:

  1. What is your ITAR experience and what are the regulations should I come under? The first question may get a rote answer or even a genuine one, but expect a slightly unique answer like – can I get more information about your product to suggest the right fit, form…?

  2. Can you share some of your existing compliant clients? They’d be happily sharing information with you to learn.

  3. Author Bio:-

  4. Linqs Group writes about the ITAR consultant versus certification discussion. He stresses on hiring a suitable ITAR consultant instead of chasing down any ITAR certification that simply doesn’t exist for real. His suggestion on querying at ITAR consultants can help businesses find their right guidance to comply with ITAR regulations.