Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2662 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 17 May 2026, Treasurer Jim Chalmers signed the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers (Disposal of Interests in Northern Minerals Limited) Orders (No. 1) 2026 (F2026N00326), directing six China-linked foreign investors to divest a combined 1,678,895,780 shares in Northern Minerals Limited (ASX: NTU) within 14 days of the Orders commencing on 18 June 2026. The six named investors are: Real International Resources Limited (619.1m shares), Qogir Trading and Service Co. Limited (523.5m), Vastness Investment Group Limited (271.3m), Chuanyou Cong (130.1m), Hong Kong Ying Tak Limited (95.3m), and Zhongxiong Lin (39.7m), together representing approximately 17.6% of NTU's total shares. NTU owns the Browns Range Heavy Rare Earths Project in Western Australia, one of the few ex-China commercial-scale dysprosium and terbium deposits. These orders are the second tranche of Treasurer-forced divestment of Chinese shareholders in NTU, distinct from the AUD 14 million Federal Court penalty imposed on Indian Ocean International Shipping in January 2026 for non-compliance with the June 2024 disposal orders.

On 11 December 2025 the Council of the EU presidency, the European Parliament, and the European Commission reached provisional political (trilogue) agreement on the revision of Regulation (EU) 2019/452 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union, concluding interinstitutional negotiations on the Commission's proposal of 24 January 2024. The revised regime upgrades the 2019 cooperation-mechanism-only framework into a hybrid harmonised/mandatory regime: all 27 Member States must establish FDI screening mechanisms (replacing the current patchwork in which some Member States have no mechanism at all); mandatory minimum sectoral scope is set EU-wide and covers dual-use items, military equipment, hyper-critical technologies (general-purpose AI with space/defence relevance, quantum technologies, semiconductors), critical raw materials, critical entities in energy/transport/digital infrastructure, electoral infrastructure, and certain financial-system entities; foreign investments routed through EU subsidiaries fall within the perimeter; a shared database prevents Member-State arbitrage; and an optional single electronic-filing portal becomes available if requested by at least nine Member States. Screening decisions remain the exclusive responsibility of the Member State in which the investment is made. Once the Regulation enters into force (after Council and Parliament formal adoption and OJ publication, both pending as of the political-agreement date), the new rules will apply after an 18-month transition period — implementation expected toward the end of 2027.

On 2025-07-08 President Trump issued a Section 721 (Defense Production Act) order retroactively prohibiting Hong Kong-based Suirui International Co., Ltd.'s 2020 acquisition of Jupiter Systems, LLC, a US video-wall and audio-visual technology maker, from Foxconn. CFIUS found the transaction posed a national security risk because a Chinese military company holds an indirect interest in Suirui Group and can appoint one of its directors, creating a risk that Jupiter's products — used in military and critical- infrastructure environments — could be compromised. The order requires Suirui to fully divest all interests and rights in Jupiter within 120 days of the order (extendable at CFIUS's discretion) and bars Jupiter from holding interests in Suirui-linked Asian subsidiaries formed after the 2020 deal.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), enacted as Division H of P.L. 118-50 (21st Century Peace through Strength Act), prohibits app stores and internet hosting services from distributing, maintaining, or updating "foreign adversary controlled applications" — defined explicitly to include ByteDance Ltd and its subsidiaries (TikTok). ByteDance was given 270 days from enactment (until January 19, 2025) to execute a "qualified divestiture" — selling TikTok to an owner with no operational relationship with a foreign adversary — or face a nationwide distribution ban. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the law's constitutionality in TikTok, Inc. v. Garland (January 17, 2025), rejecting First Amendment challenges and affirming the national-security rationale grounded in data-collection concerns.

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 modern French FDI-screening regime is codified in Code monétaire et financier (CMF) Art. L151-1 to L151-7, substantially restructured by Loi PACTE n° 2019-486 du 22 mai 2019 (Art. 152-158) and operationalised by Décret n° 2019-1590 du 31 décembre 2019 (in force 1 April 2020) with implementing Arrêté du 31 décembre 2019. The regime requires prior authorisation from DG Trésor for non-EU/EEA acquisitions reaching ≥25% of a French target's voting rights across 17 sensitive sectors enumerated in CMF Art. R151-3, and for ≥10% acquisitions in listed-company targets (threshold made permanent by Décret 2023-1293 from 1 January 2024, having been originally introduced during COVID-19 by Décret 2020-892). Approximately 310 notifications are received annually; the regime closes the last major G7 EU-member-state FDI-screening parent-statute gap after DE AWG §§55-62, IT Golden Power DL 21/2012, NL Wet Vifo, UK NSI Act 2021, US CFIUS, JP FEFTA, AU FATA, and CH IPG.

Decreto-Legge 15 marzo 2012 n. 21 (GU n. 63 of 15 March 2012), converted with amendments into Legge 11 maggio 2012 n. 56 (GU n. 111 of 14 May 2012), establishes Italy's "Golden Power" special-powers regime — the foundational statute authorising the Italian Government to impose conditions on, veto, or prescribe remedies for corporate transactions in strategic sectors. The decree marked Italy's transition from a golden-share model (applicable only to privatised companies) to a sector-wide golden-power model applicable to any company carrying out activities of strategic relevance. Administered by the Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri (DICA), the regime has been progressively extended from its original defence + national-security + energy/transport/ communications scope to cover 5G, cloud, critical-raw-materials, financial-credit-insurance, agri-food, healthcare, media, space, and AI through a series of amending decrees from 2019 to 2026.

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.