Congress

Subscribe to Congress via RSS

The U.S. Congress is currently considering legislation that would tap the brakes on foreign direct investment in the United States, particularly on investments in sensitive industries like artificial intelligence, robotics, and semiconductors. We know: you’re saying we already have that in the form of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (known as CFIUS).
Continue Reading Seeking foreign investors for your tech startup? Congress says, “not so fast.”

The other day I spoke to a colleague at the U.S. Department of the Treasury who works in the Office of Investment Security and said, “I heard CFIUS filings were going to break last year’s record total.” He just laughed. He said the OIS received one hundred and seventy-some filings in 2016, the most they had ever received in a year.

This year, only in November, they were over 225 submissions!

Of course, all of this was just talk and should not be relied on for statistical analysis. But it gives you a good idea of the flood of CFIUS filings that the Committee is now tasked with reviewing. While my contact was sanguine on the possibility of adding some new folks soon to his office soon, he noted that the OIS staff – whom he called the best of the best – has not yet been increased to meet the surge in demand.

So what does this mean for your inbound investment into the United States? We explore that question and provide a few tips below. In addition to a present snapshot of CFIUS, we have a look at the future of CFIUS as a proposed Senate bill aims to increase scrutiny on foreign investment.
Continue Reading The Waiting Game: When, Why, and How to File with CFIUS in a New Era of Investment Scrutiny

HERE WE ANSWER A FEW OF THE QUESTIONS THAT YOU MAY HAVE

What does decertification mean?

For the time being, decertification is a solely U.S. issue. Under the Iran nuclear agreement (known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA), Iran agreed to limits on its nuclear program in exchange for relief from U.S. and UN sanctions. Soon after the JCPOA was signed, the U.S. Congress passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA). That law requires the president to certify to Congress every 90 days that Iran is meeting the terms of the nuclear agreement and that continuing to waive sanctions on Iran is vital to the security interests of the United States. Today, he decertified Iran under INARA on the grounds that continuing to waive sanctions is not in the national security interests of the United States.
Continue Reading Today, President Trump Decertified the Iran Deal and Announced Tougher Sanctions on Iran

Boy, does it sound convincing when Mr. Trump states he will submit notice under section 2205 of NAFTA to let Mexico and Canada know that the U.S. will withdraw from NAFTA. The problem is, while the president-to-be is capable, we presume, of writing, signing, and sending (or possibly tweeting) such a notification, that notification would not have a legal significance because withdrawing from NAFTA, ab initio, is not a power accorded the President.
Continue Reading The Undoing Project – Why NAFTA Can’t be Undone, but Can be Re-Done

By: Curt Dombek, Brian Weimer, Dan Brooks, and Reid Whitten

Since 1999, strict controls on the export of U.S. satellites and satellite components have drastically eroded U.S. manufacturers’ market share in the global satellite industry.  On April 18, 2012, the U.S. Departments of State and Defense released the “1248 Report” containing findings related to reducing some of those controls.  The 1248 Report assesses the national security risks of removing certain satellites and related components from the tightly controlled United States Munitions List (USML) and transferring them to the generally less restrictive Commerce Control List (CCL).  The report concludes that most communications satellites, lower-performing remote sensing satellites, and related components could be transferred from the USML to the CCL without harming U.S. national security.  The transfer of these items to the CCL could greatly benefit the U.S. satellite industry by significantly easing the export controls placed on its products.…
Continue Reading Proposed Easing of Satellite Export Controls Could Benefit U.S. Satellite Industry