Biden Administration To Take Action On U.S. Outbound Investment Screening

Investment screening has become an increasingly important topic for the United States and its allies, as concerns grow about the accumulation of sensitive information and technologies by strategic adversaries like China and Russia. The Biden administration is currently contemplating taking action in the near future, likely in the form of an executive order, to establish an outbound investment screening regime focusing on U.S. investments in certain sectors inside or in partnership with countries of concern. The goal of the program is to limit the transfer of technology to such countries through U.S. investments that could be used to bolster foreign military and civilian surveillance capabilities. While the United States already has a robust mechanism in place to screen inward foreign investments for national security reasons (through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, or CFIUS), an outbound screening regime is a novel approach, that some refer to as "CFIUS