The national security and foreign direct investment (“FDI”) review landscape around the world is evolving rapidly. A pre-pandemic trend of active FDI reviews in countries around the world has gained momentum and resulted in the emergence of new FDI regimes. Not only have new FDI regimes proliferated, but also there has been a tightening of existing regimes with an ever-growing number of market sectors viewed as strategically important and thus subject to heightened scrutiny. These trendlines have converged with a surge in global dealmaking, adding to regulatory complexity and resulting in a growing list of deals that need to navigate potential FDI and national security concerns. It is thus more important than ever to evaluate FDI screening risks early in the due diligence process, giving careful consideration to the risks and threats posed by buyers, investors and targets and to potential substantive (mitigation conditions) and procedural (timing) implications. In the following sections, we contextualize these trends in a focused set of jurisdictions to assist cross-border dealmakers with understanding the headwinds and assessing how best to manage FDI-related considerations from the start of the transaction process so as to avoid impediments to closing.
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