On November 14, 2008, the Department of the Treasury issued its final rule to implement the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007, which provided guidelines for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States when reviewing investments by foreign persons in U.S. businesses for national security issues. The final regulations go into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register: Regulations Pertaining to Mergers, Acquisitions, and Takeovers by Foreign Persons. (.pdf) That means they should be in effect by the end of the year.
One issue with the law and regulations is the uncertainty of when notification is required under FINSA.
Under §800.207:
The term covered transaction means any transaction that is proposed or pending
after August 23, 1988, by or with any foreign person, which could result in control of a
U.S. business by a foreign person.
The issue then is what is meant by “control” under FINSA?
The final regulations do not offer much help:
The Final Rule maintains the long-standing approach of defining “control” in functional terms as the ability to exercise certain powers over important matters affecting an entity. Specifically, “control” is defined as the “power, direct or indirect, whether or not exercised, through the ownership of a majority or a dominant minority of the total outstanding voting interest in an entity, board representation, proxy voting, a special share, contractual arrangements, formal or informal arrangements to act in concert, or other means, to determine, direct, or decide important matters affecting an entity; in particular, but without limitation, to determine, direct, take, reach, or cause decisions regarding the [matters listed in §800.204(a)], or any other similarly important matters affecting an entity.” See §800.204(a). Two points should be emphasized concerning this definition. First, it eschews bright lines. Consistent with the existing regulations, control is not defined in terms of a specified percentage of shares or number of board seats. Although share holding and board seats are relevant to a control analysis, neither factor on its own is necessarily determinative. Instead, all relevant factors are considered together in light of their potential impact on a foreign person’s ability to determine,
direct, or decide important matters affecting an entity.
One useful carve-out is under §800.302(b) that transactions that are not covered transactions include:
A transaction that results in a foreign person holding ten percent or less of the outstanding voting interest in a U.S. business (regardless of the dollar value of the interest so acquired), but only if the transaction is solely for the purpose of passive investment. (See §800.223.)
See my prior blog posts: