Antitrust Chronicle^® – Foreign Direct Investment

Dear Readers,

Foreign direct investment (“FDI”) control is rapidly emerging as a key regulatory vector across the U.S, Europe, and worldwide. In the U.S., FDI control is primarily the responsibility of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”). In the EU, aside from the adoption of the EU FDI Regulation in 2019, national FDI screening procedures are established in 18 (soon to be 19) Member States. Similarly, the UK implemented its National Security and Investment Act (“NSIA”) in early 2022.

The pieces in this Chronicle deal with the emerging field of FDI control as it evolves in jurisdictions around the world. As is evident from these perceptive articles, practitioners will need to be increasingly mindful of the FDI implications of cross-border transactions, both in terms of the substance of the FDI rules in various jurisdictions and the timing implications of FDI notification and clearance in terms of deal scheduling. Moreover, public authorities will continue to refine their policy priorities and notification regimes as their experience grows over time.

As regards Europe, Peter Camesasca, Horst Henschen, Katherine Kingsbury & Martin Juhasz note that as the European Commission and Member States begin to report on the implementation of their FDI regimes and as more decisional practice emerges, it is possible to reflect with greater clarity on their implications in practice. As the authors note, an overwhelming majority of FDI