The US Department of the Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) on January 13 published the final rules implementing the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA). FIRRMA ushered in noticeable changes and higher awareness of CFIUS and its impact on foreign investment in the United States. The new rules are effective February 13.
These regulations make permanent the proposed regulations published in September 2019. Among the more important developments, the new CFIUS rules address real estate, change of control, and non-controlling investments, as well as clarify various concepts about which industry commented. Co-location, critical technologies, and related issues remain areas of interest for CFIUS and will likely continue to impact any cross-border investments.
Morgan Lewis’s CFIUS working group will publish a summary of the new rules—outlining key changes from the September 2019 proposed regulations and the anticipated impact on cross-border investments—and will update this post with a link to that publication.
International trade and national security practice leader Giovanna M. Cinelli will be moderating a panel including Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Investment Security Tom Feddo, Bureau of Industry and Security Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce Matt Borman, and representatives from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the US Department of Defense to discuss threat assessments, how the new regulations address those threats, and the treatment of emerging technologies. The presentation will be part of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance’s Legal Affairs Roundtable on January 16, 2020.
If you have questions, please contact any member of the Morgan Lewis CFIUS working group: Kenneth Nunnenkamp, Giovanna Cinelli, Stephen Paul Mahinka, Ulises Pin, and Carl Valenstein. In addition, our CFIUS working group will host a roundtable discussion by webinar in the coming weeks. We will update the Power & Pipes blog to include a registration link for that event as soon as it is scheduled.