Foreign Investment Controls
Global expertise to help you reduce deal uncertainty.
Foreign direct investment (FDI) controls and national security screening processes are increasingly a ‘deal-critical’ consideration on complex cross-border M&A and financing transactions.
Our global foreign investment expertise will help you navigate the fast-moving international foreign investment landscape to plan and execute your deals with confidence.
To discuss how we can help, please get in touch with our experts.
Increasingly complex regulatory environment
New FDI screening tools have proliferated in recent years while previously well-established regimes have expanded significantly in scope. Each regime has jurisdiction-specific characteristics. Sometimes even domestic deals can be caught. Enforcement is becoming more assertive as agencies react to recent geo-political and economic shocks such as Covid-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and consequent inflationary pressures throughout the global supply chain.
Inter-agency cooperation
Added to this, agencies are now routinely coordinating FDI reviews with counterparts in ‘friendly’ third party countries, eg as between the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand (the so-called ‘five eyes’ partner countries) and between the European Union Member States.
Why choose Allen & Overy?
Strategic advice
Coordination and consistency across multiple parallel reviews are critical to keep cross-border deals on track. This is particularly the case when dealing with merger control and sectoral regulatory regimes in tandem with foreign investment reviews. We have the ‘one stop shop’ experience and expertise you need for effective deal execution.
Transactional and industry experience
We help clients secure foreign investment clearances for the market’s high-profile and sensitive transactions – across M&A, private equity, restructuring and secured debt. Governments often ask for our views on proposed new and amended regimes, enabling us to apply ‘ahead of the curve’ insights to clients’ clearance strategies.
Unrivalled global coverage
No matter what the geography, we can give you the advice and advocacy to get your deal done. Working with over 450 relationship firms, we advise across all major global regimes, including the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), all major EU Member State regimes, the EU FDI Regulation, the United Kingdom National Security and Investment Act, and Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB).
Meet our lawyers
News and insights
News: 18 April 2024
Joint announcement – Allen & Overy LLP and Shearman & Sterling LLP
Publications: 05 October 2023
Foreign investment screening landscape grows more complex
That foreign investment screening adds a layer of complexity to M&A processes is nothing new. But exactly how complex has it become as the number of regimes grows, the rules evolve – and enforcement…
Publications: 27 January 2023
The National Security and Investment Act 2021: reflections on the first year
The UK's National Security and Investment Act 2021 (the NSIA) came fully into force on 4 January 2022, with retrospective effect on certain transactions entered into or completed on or after 12…
Publications: 08 August 2022
The Decree is going to introduce long-awaited simplifications to the Golden Power procedure.