CFIUS

We guide U.S. companies and foreign investors through increasingly intense challenges presented by the national security regulation of international trade and investment.

We help our clients avoid surprises that can delay or derail deals. We perform due diligence, assess risk, develop appropriate contract provisions and secure needed authorizations. We help our clients navigate the CFIUS process, starting with assessment of considerations relating to CFIUS mandatory and voluntary filing, preparation of declarations and notices, developing CFIUS strategy, meeting with CFIUS member agencies, advising on follow-on investigations, and negotiating and implementing mitigation agreements.

We have been deeply involved in CFIUS screenings since the underlying statute was enacted in 1988 and continue advising clients since CFIUS issued final regulations to comprehensively implement the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (“FIRRMA”). These regulations have decisive impacts on clients – expanding CFIUS’s jurisdiction beyond traditional scrutiny of foreign “control” investment transactions to noncontrolling investments that implicate U.S. critical technology, critical infrastructure or sensitive personal data and certain transactions involving real estate. The new CFIUS regulations also, for the first time, mandate CFIUS filings in some cases.

Some of our representative experience includes:

• Guiding a global leader in the renewable energy sector to CFIUS clearance for several M&A and investment transactions, having developed a CFIUS strategy to overcome challenges associated with the ownership stake by a Chinese state-owned enterprise
• Securing CFIUS clearance for foreign investment in a peer-to-peer carsharing marketplace company
• Securing CFIUS clearance for acquisition of the Chicago Stock Exchange by an investor consortium led by a Chinese group
• Securing CFIUS clearance for acquisition of the U.S. plane maker Cirrus by a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC)