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ARTICLE · 05 AUGUST 2022

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Screening Of Third Country Transactions Bill 2022

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On Tuesday, the government published the Screening of Third Country Transactions Bill 2022 (the "Bill").

IrelandAntitrust/Competition Law
Niall Collins
Niall Collins
Simon Shinkwin
Simon Shinkwin
Florian Niesel
Florian Niesel
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On Tuesday, the government published the Screening of Third Country Transactions Bill 2022 (the "Bill"). The Bill is designed to implement the EU Screening Regulation1 and ensure all Member States have the legal tools to screen investments by non EU / EEA undertakings and individuals of certain key infrastructure assets with an Irish nexus, in particular concerning foreign investments into critical utilities and infrastructure sectors, high-tech and personal data focussed businesses, and media businesses.

The key takeaways are that this new regime is suspensory (with criminal sanctions), involves very low thresholds, covers a wide variety of sectors and needs to be considered in parallel with merger control rules. It remains to be seen how it will be implemented in practice and when the Minister will publish guidance documents on aspects which remain open to interpretation.

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