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ARTICLE · 22 APRIL 2015

Recent Changes To The Investment Canada Act Will Affect Investments By Non-Canadians

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The Canadian federal government has recently announced material changes to the Investment Canada Act (the "Act") in three areas...

CanadaGovernment, Public Sector
Stephen Zolf
Stephen Zolf
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The Canadian federal government has recently announced material changes to the Investment Canada Act (the "Act") in three areas, namely:

  1. higher thresholds and changed valuation methodologies for reviews of investments;
  2. time frames for national security review (the Canadian equivalent to the U.S. CFIUS rules) extended; and
  3. information filing requirements for nonreviewable investments have become significantly more onerous

1. Higher Thresholds and Changed Valuation Methodologies for Reviews of Investments under the Investment Canada Act

Commencing April 24, 2015, the review threshold for WTO investments (by investors other than State-Owned Enterprises ("SOE")) is raised to C$600 million in enterprise value (an increase from the current test for transactions closing in 2015, which sets the threshold at C$369 million based on the book value of the assets of the acquired business). The C$600 million threshold will apply for a two-year period ending in

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