Build the checklist around the actual partnership: identify who is involved, where technology and data will move or be accessed, and what each party will do. Then assign an owner, evidence, a recorded decision, and a review trigger to every applicable risk area. No single checklist makes a partnership compliant everywhere; requirements depend on the countries, technology, data, end use, sector, and deal structure.
1. Define the partnership before assessing it
Start with a factual description of the proposed arrangement. A checklist built before the team knows the parties, activities, and flows will miss risks that arise through affiliates, remote access, subcontractors, or onward transfers.
- Deal: purpose, operating model, duration, launch markets, and whether the arrangement is a license, services relationship, joint venture, supply arrangement, or a combination.
- People and entities: each party’s legal identity, beneficial ownership, relevant affiliates, agents, subcontractors, intermediaries, and financial institutions involved in the transaction.
- Technology and services: hardware, software, encryption, source code, technical data, know-how, support, and other services that will be supplied, shared, or accessed.
- Information flows: personal and business data, where it originates, who can access it, where it is stored or backed up, and who may receive it next.
- Geography and use: origin and destination, operating locations, personnel locations, intended end users and uses, and possible re-export or onward-transfer routes.
Draw a simple flow diagram if a written description is hard to follow. Show both the movement of items and data and the locations from which people can access them. Export compliance guidance from the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) calls for a program tailored to the organization’s activities subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), while the European Commission’s sanctions guidance considers partner, transaction, and goods risks. These are examples of jurisdiction-specific guidance, not universal rules for every deal: BIS Export Compliance Programs and the European Commission guidance on due diligence.
2. Give every checklist line an owner and a decision record
Name one accountable lead for the overall checklist and a working owner for each specialist area. The business sponsor can coordinate decisions, but should not substitute for trade, privacy, security, legal, procurement, or operational review where those functions are needed.
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| Checklist field | What to record |
|---|---|
| Scope and basis | Partnership, countries, entities, activity, and the law, official guidance, or internal policy considered |
| Owner and reviewer | Person accountable for the item and specialist or approver consulted |
| Evidence | Documents, searches, diagrams, classifications, assessments, or contract provisions reviewed, with dates and source references |
| Decision and mitigation | Applicability, conclusion, required controls or authorization, unresolved questions, and any approved exception |
| Status and timing | Completion status, target and completion dates, next review date, and the event that would reopen the decision |
| Escalation | Who must decide or advise when a match, classification, transfer route, license, or local-law issue is uncertain |
Use a versioned register so later reviewers can tell what was assessed, what changed, and who approved an exception. Establish approval routes before signing or enabling access: the appropriate specialist should resolve an uncertain legal classification or authorization question, rather than leaving it as an undocumented business assumption.
3. Check sanctions, counterparties, and diversion risk
Sanctions and export controls are related but distinct reviews. A counterparty screen alone does not establish that a product, destination, end use, or transfer route is permitted.
- Identify the parties, relevant owners or controllers, affiliates, intermediaries, banks, ultimate destination, end user, and intended use.
- Check the official restricted-party and sanctions sources that apply to the parties, route, and activity. Preserve the source or list checked, date and time, search terms, reviewer, potential-match analysis, resolution, and escalation.
- Assess diversion indicators involving the route, goods, software, technology, intermediaries, or proposed end use. Decide whether further diligence, controls, authorization, notification, or contractual flow-downs are required.
- Document why a possible name match is or is not the relevant person or entity; do not treat an unresolved potential match as cleared.
The European Commission’s guidance, published 19 February 2024, covers due diligence on partners, transactions, and goods, including circumvention red flags. UK government guidance published 22 April 2026 addresses Sanctions End-Use Controls in the context of potential diversion of goods and related technology. Those sources describe different jurisdictions and do not establish that the same controls apply to every partnership: European Commission guidance and UK Sanctions End-Use Controls guidance.
4. Assess export controls and technology access
Build an inventory of controlled or potentially controlled items and technology, then assess how they will be transferred or made accessible. Relevant questions can include access by personnel in another country, re-exports, and transfers within a country—not only physical shipment across a border.
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- Assign classification responsibility. Record the classification, rationale, regime and source consulted, responsible reviewer, and any unresolved issue. Do not infer a classification from a product name alone.
- Map the transaction. Record origin, destination, recipients, end users, end uses, intermediaries, re-export paths, and relevant access locations.
- Determine applicable controls. For each relevant regime, identify whether screening, a license, exception, authorization, reporting, recordkeeping, or training requirement applies.
- Gate release and access. Do not ship, disclose, or enable access until required reviews and authorizations are complete; document the release decision.
BIS describes an effective export compliance program as tailored to the organization’s EAR-subject activities and identifies eight program elements. A checklist can support that program, but is not a substitute for it or a guarantee of compliance. See BIS Export Compliance Programs.
5. Map personal data and determine transfer requirements
First establish what personal data is involved and which regime applies to each collection, access, storage, or onward disclosure. A partnership may involve data being accessed remotely even when the primary system remains in its original country.
- Record the data categories and sensitivity, people concerned, purposes, retention periods, systems, and subprocessors.
- Identify the parties’ roles, such as controller or processor where those concepts apply, and identify where collection, access, storage, backups, support, and onward disclosure occur.
- Determine whether a cross-border transfer rule applies to each relevant activity and identify the legally available transfer route and required documents.
- Complete the applicable assessment of safeguards and transfer risks; define security, purpose limits, rights and incident assistance, subprocessor controls, deletion or return, audit evidence, and change notification in the contract.
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guide, updated 15 January 2026, explains when UK international-transfer rules apply and steps to comply. Its separate transfer-risk guidance says UK legislation now calls the assessment a “data protection test.” For certain transfers from EU/EEA entities, or entities subject to the GDPR, to recipients outside the EU/EEA, EU Standard Contractual Clauses are one pre-approved contractual mechanism. Applicability, available routes, and clause selection depend on the actual relationship and current law: ICO guide to international transfers, ICO guidance on completing a transfer risk assessment, and the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses information.
6. Review ICT supplier risk and secure information exchange
Assess both the supplier and the way the partnership will exchange information or provide access. Write down controls before connecting systems or sharing sensitive materials, and align the expected safeguards to the risk and information involved.
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- Supplier diligence: consider ownership, control or influence; product and component provenance; resilience; foundational cyber practices; and lower-tier supply-chain dependencies.
- Exchange controls: define data classification, authorized users, authentication, encryption, logging, vulnerability and patch handling, incident notice and cooperation, continuity, and audit or evidence expectations.
- Change control: set expectations for new subcontractors, material product or hosting changes, and changes to access or security controls.
- Suspension and exit: provide for access removal, credential handling, data return or deletion, retention of records required by law, and verification that closure is complete.
NIST SP 1326, published in July 2026, identifies five ICT supplier due-diligence components: Foreign Ownership, Control, or Influence (FOCI), provenance, resilience, foundational cyber practices, and supply-chain tiers. NIST SP 800-47 Rev. 1, published in July 2021, addresses protection before, during, and after information exchanges and advises organizations to tailor its guidance. It states: “the information being exchanged also requires the same or similar level of protection as it moves from one organization to another (protection commensurate with risk).” See NIST SP 1326 and NIST SP 800-47 Rev. 1.
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7. Set IP, technology-use, and governance terms
Make the contract and operating model consistent about who owns technology and what each party may do with it. A broad phrase such as “jointly developed” may not answer who can use improvements, retain source code, or continue using results after the relationship ends.
- Separate each party’s background IP, licensed rights, jointly developed results, improvements, derivatives, and third-party or open-source materials.
- Specify who may access, copy, modify, reverse engineer, train on, disclose, sublicense, retain, or transfer technology and data, including territory, purpose, and duration.
- Set safeguards for source code, trade secrets, personnel, facilities, and technical data; define incident handling and appropriate audit rights.
- Check each host jurisdiction for local ownership, localization, licensing, administrative approval, disclosure, secrecy, and data export or access restrictions.
- Set governance and decision rights, regulatory cooperation, records access, dispute handling, transition assistance, and the disposition of IP, data, and access on exit.
SEC staff disclosure guidance identifies foreign-operation and joint-venture questions involving technology and IP licenses, improvement rights, continued use, foreign ownership requirements, local regulatory access, and laws restricting data export or access. The SEC expressly says the guidance has no legal force or effect and creates no obligations; use it as a diligence prompt, not binding legal authority: SEC staff guidance on intellectual-property and technology risks.
8. Keep the checklist current and compare alternatives consistently
For each open or completed item, preserve the basis for the assessment, evidence reviewed, decision, exception and approver if any, control owner, completion date, and next review or trigger. Reopen the relevant checks when ownership, product, destination, end user or use, data flow, partner, business model, or applicable law changes. BIS recommends regular risk assessment, at least annually in its guidance summary, and keeping the export compliance program current; that cadence should not be generalized to every legal or operational obligation. See BIS Export Compliance Programs.
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If the business is choosing among partners, operating models, or destinations, score each against the same risk dimensions: ownership and screening exposure; export classification and licensing; end user, end use, and diversion; data-transfer route and safeguards; supplier provenance and resilience; security controls; IP and improvement rights; local approvals and data access; monitoring and audit; and exit and continuity. Weight dimensions for the actual transaction and record why any exception was accepted. This is a way to compare options, not a universal ranking of partnership structures.
A jurisdiction-neutral checklist is a workflow for surfacing and documenting decisions, not a statement that every listed regime applies. Have qualified trade, sanctions, privacy, security, or local-law specialists resolve fact-specific classifications, transfer mechanisms, licenses, and local requirements, and verify current rules with the relevant official sources.
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