CFIUS and Foreign Direct Investment Regulation

A Leader in CFIUS and FDI Representation

Our extensive experience with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) began in the committee’s nascent days, as we represented Fujitsu in its effort to acquire Fairchild Semiconductor — one of the transactions that led to the committee’s modern form. Since then, we evolved into a one-stop shop for CFIUS matters. We have handled many of the most prominent and challenging CFIUS cases, from pretransaction counseling and outreach after nonnotified transactions to filing guidance and mitigation negotiation.

With broad national security experience, we navigate the sensitive and complex CFIUS process, as well as similar national security or foreign direct investment (FDI) reviews around the world. We also advise clients in all aspects of foreign ownership, control or influence (FOCI) mitigation processes, including strategic planning, risk assessment, due diligence, filings, and mitigation agreement negotiation and implementation.

Who We Help

We excel in supporting foreign investors and others across diverse sectors, including aerospace and defense, technology, funds and energy. We have represented a broad range of global investors on CFIUS and related FOCI and national security matters, including private equity and investment firms, corporations and state-owned enterprises. Our clients are from all corners of the globe — Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. Regardless of where they are located, clients trust us to handle their most sensitive and complex matters for CFIUS and related regulatory reviews.

Why Clients Choose Paul Hastings

We leverage our decades of successfully addressing national security risks with investors before CFIUS and other FDI regulators to advise clients in all stages of national security reviews and investors contemplating inbound investments.

• Reputable: Our global team, together with a trusted network of local practitioners, is well-known to FDI regulators around the world.
• Award-winning: Our Chambers-ranked CFIUS practice is solely dedicated to CFIUS and FDI matters and is efficiently staffed with attorneys who have prior CFIUS, government and military experience.
• Trusted: We serve as trusted advisers to, and have led FDI filings for, U.S. and non-U.S. public companies.
• Results-oriented: We have secured dozens of FDI clearances on behalf of U.S. and non-U.S. entities in the past year alone.

Precedent-Setting Experience:

• Served as lead counsel on one of the highest-profile transactions ever to hit the CFIUS docket: the 2013 acquisition of Smithfield Foods by what is now WH Group. At the time, this was the largest-ever takeover of a U.S. company by a Chinese company.
• Secured clearance for Chinese public company COSCO Shipping Holdings in its acquisition of Orient Overseas International Lines, the most complex Chinese transaction to win approval from CFIUS during the first Trump administration.
• Obtained CFIUS clearance for the acquisition of Sirtex Medical Limited, a cutting-edge biotech company, by PRC investment company CDH Fund.

Outbound Investments

With a new U.S. government regulatory regime restricting certain outbound investments, clients are seeking strategic advice and guidance on compliance. Paul Hastings leads the market by offering comprehensive legal advice on cross-border transactions and investments affected by the Outbound Investment Security Program, helping to ensure that companies comply with the emerging and evolving outbound regulations, and advising on risk.

Additional Representative Experience:

• Led CFIUS clearance and International Traffic in Arms Regulations clearance processes for the “KANT” joint venture formed by the combination of France’s Nexter Systems and Germany’s Krauss Maffei Wegmann group.
• Assisted a U.S. aerospace manufacturer and key military supplier in obtaining CFIUS clearance for the acquisition of its parent company by a European defense firm.
• Guided CJ Logistics on obtaining CFIUS clearance for the acquisition of U.S. warehousing, transportation and logistics assets.
• Represented Hanwha Systems, a Korean publicly traded company, in its minority investment in EU and U.S.-based low earth satellite technology companies before CFIUS, and Hanwha Solutions in another matter involving a minority investment in a solid-state battery producer before CFIUS.
• Represented EnCap in its joint sale with Apollo Global Management of Broad Reach Power LLC, which owns and operates utility-scale standalone battery storage projects throughout the United States, to French power company Engie S.A., for up to $1.1 billion.
• Represented eMagin, a U.S. publicly traded company focused on the research and development, design, manufacturing and marketing of organic light-emitting diode miniature displays, with respect to its acquisition by Samsung Display Co., Ltd. (SDC), a Japanese company.
• Counseled some of the world’s largest microchip design and manufacturing companies, as well as their customers, on compliance with U.S. and foreign government restrictions on the export of encryption technology.