In an era where technological prowess and economic security are more entangled than ever, the United States has refined its approach towards restricting outbound investments. As we have been blogging since 2022, the past two years have seen efforts to restrict outbound investments for national security reasons. Those efforts come both from Congress through legislation and the White House through Executive Order.Continue Reading Proposed Outbound Investment Regulations: Understanding the New Restrictions on U.S. Outbound Investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Semiconductors, and Quantum Computing

On August 9, 2023, President Biden issued an Executive Order (E.O.) ordering the issuance of outbound investment restrictions. This E.O. comes after nearly a year of anticipation (as we have documented on several occasions over the past year). This is the start of the reverse Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) process that has been mostly speculation (and blog articles) until yesterday. In conjunction, the Treasury Department issued a press release, fact sheet, and Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) seeking comments from the public on the proposed restrictions by September 28.Continue Reading Reverse CFIUS Unveiled: Focus on China, Semiconductors, Artificial Intelligence, and Quantum Computing

Key Takeaways:

  • Outbound investment rules may require notification, but there is less risk of transactions being blocked by regulators.
  • Investments in advanced semiconductors in China may still be subject to being blocked.
  • The required notification, review, and possible restriction still represents a massive increase (from almost nothing) in regulation on outbound investments.
  • Increases in the scope and powers of the reviewers may follow in future regulations or legislation.

Continue Reading U.S. Outbound Investment Restrictions Are Becoming a Reality

Key Takeaways

  • New outbound investment controls likely to focus on semiconductors, AI, and quantum computing.
  • Biotechnology and battery technology investments overseas may not be subject to the upcoming proposed controls.

Continue Reading New Year, New Development: Fewer Industries May be Affected by Proposed Outbound Investment Controls (Reverse CFIUS)

Key Takeaways:

  • Emerging technology sectors will soon be subject to new export controls.
  • Affected sectors include biotech, computing, artificial intelligence, positioning and navigation, data analytics, additive manufacturing, robotics, brain-machine interface, advanced materials, and surveillance.
  • New export controls on these sectors will likely require companies to obtain a license to export products to China and other destinations, and impose restrictions on sharing information with foreign nationals.
  • These sectors will also be added the list of industries subject to enhanced foreign investment scrutiny by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
  • The U.S. government has invited comments on the criteria to be used to establish new controls. The deadline for comments is December 19, 2018.

Export controls and other regulations often lag a step or two behind the times. That trend has accelerated with the pace of technological advancement. As a result, for many years, technical know-how in many cutting-edge technical fields has not been subject to export controls. This has meant that many commercial technical innovations could be freely exported without significant restrictions. As long as they were not designed for a military application, and no encryption technology involved, many new ideas developed in the United States were simply unaccounted for in the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR).

But the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is about to make up a lot of ground in a single, large leap.
Continue Reading The Little Regulation That Will Make a Big Change in How You Do Business: Department of Commerce to Establish New Export Controls on Emerging Technologies