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ARTICLE · 16 NOVEMBER 2020

Foreign Direct Investment UK Update

Hogan Lovells Cadwalader
Hogan Lovells Cadwalader
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Hogan Lovells Cadwalader

Hogan Lovells Cadwalader

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Foreign investment has been ripe for legislative change in the United Kingdom. We have previously discussed this in our Clients and Friends Memo of 28 July 2020...

United KingdomGovernment, Public Sector
Jodi Avergun
Jodi Avergun
Mark Beardsworth
Mark Beardsworth
Kevin Roberts
Kevin Roberts
Shruti Chandhok
Shruti Chandhok
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Foreign investment has been ripe for legislative change in the United Kingdom.  We have previously discussed this in our  Clients and Friends Memo of 28 July 2020 and our podcast.  The latest development came on 11 November 2020, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the National Security and Investment Bill 2020 (the Bill), which overhauls the current merger and acquisition rules in relation to foreign investment. 

The Bill is aimed at broadening the scope of transactions that the Government may review for national security reasons, that are divorced from competition, media plurality or financial stability grounds.  In June 2020, the Government legislated for a short term change through the Enterprise Act 2002, which included lowering the threshold for intervention in three specific sectors: artificial intelligence, cryptographic authentication technology and computing hardware.  Even with these lower thresholds only a handful of transactions would be considered

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