Cassidy Law
MONTH-IN-BRIEF (Jun 2026)
Business Crimes & Corporate Compliance
Export Regulations in Action: The Shutdown of Anthropic’s AI Models Fable 5 and Mythos 5
By Margaret M. Cassidy, Cassidy Law
On June 12, 2026, using its authority pursuant to U.S Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) (15 C.F.R. 744.11(c)), the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued Anthropic a directive ordering it to restrict foreign access to its newest artificial intelligence models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for national security reasons.
Anthropic reported on its website that both the government and the tech industry raised concerns that the safeguards built into its two new models could be defeated. If so, given the two models’ ability for autonomous reasoning, bad actors could use it, for example, to generate code to execute cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Anthropic argues that the risk is limited and no more concerning than the models of its competitors.
