International Regulatory Enforcement (PHIRE)

The “Transformative” CFIUS Bill: Not So Fast.

August 13, 2018

Scott M. Flicker, Robert Silvers, Quinn Dang & Talya Hutchison

The Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (“FIRRMA”), a package of amendments to the national security review process overseen by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”), has just been signed into law. An overhaul of the CFIUS process was certainly much-anticipated and, many think, long overdue. But did the legislation truly transform CFIUS’s authority and procedure to the degree and in the ways expected by the investment community? In some ways, yes. But a closer reading of the lengthy amendments (totaling nearly 100 pages) yields less than meets the eye.

• Much of what Congress has done in FIRRMA merely codifies CFIUS’s current practice of expansively interpreting its jurisdiction.

• And those provisions that have the potential to bring real change and added predictability to the CFIUS process won’t come into effect for many months.

For additional information, please see our client alert.