Treasury Department Issues New CFIUS Regulations Launching FIRRMA Pilot Program, Requiring Declarations For Certain Transactions

On October 10, 2018, the Treasury Department, as chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), issued interim regulations implementing certain mandatory review provisions of the Foreign Investment Risk Review Management Act (FIRRMA) enacted in August, and making other conforming amendments to the existing CFIUS regulations in Part 800 of title 31 of the CFR. The interim regulations create a new Part 801 of title 31, establishing a "Pilot program to review certain transactions involving foreign persons and critical technologies," which requires filing of mandatory declarations for certain transactions. This pilot program impacts all qualifying transactions completed after November 10, 2018, unless the material terms of the transaction have already been agreed or certain other limited exceptions apply. This new mandatory filing carries civil penalty exposure for failure to file. It will have a have a significant impact on the CFIUS process for