EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation: Commission Publishes FSR Guidelines – Key Implications For M&A

On 9 January 2026, the European Commission ("Commission") published its first set of Guidelines on the application of the Foreign Subsidies Regulation ("FSR"), which requires some M&A deals involving companies that have received support from non-EU governments to be notified to the Commission and reviewed for potential impacts on competition in the EU. For an overview of the FSR framework and early enforcement trends, see our earlier brief available here. The Guidelines seek to enhance legal certainty and transparency by clarifying the analytical framework for FSR merger notifications—while underscoring that enforcement will remain highly fact-specific and grounded in an effects-based assessment, rather than a formalistic, checklist-driven approach.