Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2666 actions· ✨ 90 recent

On 27 February 2025, the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova adopted Law No. 33/2025 amending Law No. 174/2021 on the mechanism for examining investments of importance for state security. The law entered into force on 20 April 2025 after publication in Monitorul Oficial Nr. 144-147 of 20 March 2025 (promulgated by Presidential Decree No. 118-X of 17 March 2025). Key operative changes expand the protected-sector perimeter to explicitly enumerate 17 categories covering data processing and storage, AI, robotics, cybersecurity, semiconductors, quantum, nanotechnology and biotechnology alongside the pre-existing energy, transport, communications, defence and aerospace pillars; add new grounds for refusal (money-laundering suspicion, corruption convictions, foreign-government control, cybersecurity risk, access to personal data of citizens); introduce enhanced Council powers including retroactive review of previously approved investments and fines of up to 5% of annual turnover (capped at MDL 5 million); and carve out intra-group transactions, asset sales below EUR 1 million, and state-owned-enterprise dealings. The Screening Council became operational in July 2025.

Decree-Law No. 104 of 10 August 2023 ("Decreto Asset" / Omnibus Decree, GU n.186 of 10 Aug 2023, in force 11 Aug 2023) was converted with amendments into Law No. 136 of 9 October 2023 (GU n.236 of 9 Oct 2023). The conversion law materially expanded Italy's "Golden Power" foreign-direct-investment screening regime (DL 21/2012). Two key extensions: (i) intra-group transactions involving entities outside the EU are no longer exempt from the exercise of special powers — only the prior notification carve-out was preserved; (ii) acts, resolutions and operations concerning intellectual-property rights in artificial intelligence, semiconductor production, cybersecurity, aerospace, energy storage, quantum and nuclear technologies, and food production technologies fall within scope when one or more counter-parties sit outside the EU. The Prime Minister also obtained an explicit veto power over transactions creating "exceptional situations" not already covered by sectoral or EU prudential / merger rules, including those touching qualifying holdings in the financial sector.

The National Security and Investment Act 2021 (c.25), receiving Royal Assent on 29 April 2021 and entering full force on 4 January 2022, created the UK's first standalone investment-screening regime, separating national-security review from the Competition and Markets Authority merger-control process. The Act empowers the Secretary of State to call in any acquisition of "control or influence" over a qualifying entity or asset on national-security grounds, and designates 17 sensitive sectors in which acquisitions crossing 25%/50%/75% share-or-voting-rights thresholds (or material influence) require mandatory pre-completion notification to the Investment Security Unit (Cabinet Office); completion before clearance is void and criminal sanctions of up to 5 years imprisonment apply to non-notifying parties. The Act is the structural peer of US CFIUS/FIRRMA (2018), EU Regulation 2019/452, Germany AWG §§55–62, France Décret 2014-479, Netherlands Wet Vifo, and the broader allied FDI-screening parent-statute lattice, and the enabling statute under which all UK mandatory-notification schedule amendments operate.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Act (FIPA), Act No. 5559, is the foundational statute governing all inbound foreign direct investment into the Republic of Korea. Enacted 16 September 1998 by the National Assembly under President Kim Dae-jung as part of IMF-conditionality-driven economic-liberalisation reforms following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, it replaced the 1966 Foreign Capital Inducement Act (외자도입법). FIPA establishes the MOTIE-chaired Foreign Investment Committee, the Invest Korea (KOTRA) operational arm, and national-security/public-order restrictions on FDI in sensitive industries under Article 4 — the primary legal authority for all inward-FDI screening, conditional-approval, and prohibition decisions. It also creates the Foreign Investment Zone (FIZ) and Cash Grant Programme incentive architecture that continues to underpin major semiconductor and EV-battery FDI into Korea.