Commerce Department to Release Names of Firms Involved in Boycott

In a reversal of policy, the U.S. Department of Commerce will make public the names of American firms charged with Arab boycott-related offenses, according to notification received by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.

The issue was a major point in a still-pending lawsuit against the Commerce Department filed by ADL last September, and was the subject of a meeting of ADL officials and Secretary Elliot L. Richardson held last month in Washington. Richardson, in a letter to the ADL. said he had reviewed the Department’s use of charging letters as a result of the meeting and has concluded “that public disclosure is appropriate.”

“Therefore,” he added, “I have directed the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Domestic and International Business to make such amendment to the Export Administration’s regulation as may be required to implement this decision, and to make publicly available all future charging letters issued for Arab boycott-related offenses.”

The ADL participants at the meeting with Richardson were Seymour Graubard, national chairman, Lawrence Peirez,. chairman national civil rights committee. Benjamin R. Epstein, national director, Arnold Forster, associate national director and general counsel, and David A. Brody, the agency’s Washington representative.

Graubard said that the Richardson decision marked the second major government accession to demands made by ADL in its federal lawsuit against the Department of Commerce. The suit’s principal demand–that the Department stop disseminating Arab business offers containing anti-Israel boycott provisions–became moot Nov. 28, when the then-Secretary Rogers Morton, agreed to discontinue the practice. The remaining demand in the lawsuit involves the right, under the Freedom of Information Act. to inspect Commerce Department boycott reports.