Work Area: Foreign investment control

The European Commission has conditionally approved Parker Hannifin’s £6.3 billion purchase of rival aerospace component supplier Meggitt, although the deal faces a potential national security review from the UK government.

12 April 2022

An Australian court has fined a foreign investor more than €170,000 for purchasing several properties without receiving permission from the foreign investment regulator – the first-ever penalty order for a breach of Australia’s foreign investment rules.

12 April 2022

Canada’s House of Commons industry committee has recommended that any investment into the country by a company considered to be a state-owned enterprise in an authoritarian regime be subject to a national security review.

07 April 2022

The Australian government has tapped Bruce Miller – a former diplomat and head of the country’s top intelligence body – to lead the Foreign Investment Review Board following the death of its chair last week.

07 April 2022

The UK’s foreign affairs committee has expressed serious national security concerns about the proposed sale of the UK’s largest semiconductor manufacturer to a company that is “understood to be backed by the Chinese Communist Party”.

05 April 2022

The German government has opened an investigation under the country’s foreign investment law into the transfer of a stake in TUI from a sanctioned Russian oligarch to an entity controlled by his wife.

24 March 2022

New Zealand’s High Court has fined a Korean individual and his lawyer for trying to circumvent foreign investment rules by buying land without consent.

17 March 2022

The Italian government has reportedly intervened to cancel the sale of a 75% stake in drone maker Alpi Aviation to state-owned Chinese investors, after finding the deal should have been notified under the country’s “golden power law” for sensitive industries.

14 March 2022

A pair of Chinese board members at self-driving truck startup TuSimple have agreed to step down from their positions to help resolve a national security probe into the 2017 acquisition of a stake in the company by an affiliate of a major Chinese technology company.

02 March 2022

The European Commission has accused the Hungarian government of violating EU merger control rules when it vetoed an insurance tie-up on foreign investment grounds, because the decision infringed on the commission’s exclusive authority to examine transactions with an EU dimension.

21 February 2022