Regulatory & International Trade | RIT
Helping businesses clear legal regulatory hurdles in Europe
Regulatory & International Trade | RIT
Regulatory & International Trade | RIT
Helping businesses clear legal regulatory hurdles in Europe
FDI
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Securing Strategic Sectors: Insights from McDermott’s Defense & Essential Infrastructure Roundtable

by , , , , and | Nov 14, 2025 |

In October 2025, McDermott Will & Schulte hosted its Defense & Essential Infrastructure Roundtable, convening leading voices from across government, industry, and finance to discuss the challenges facing Europe’s most sensitive sectors.

The session featured insights from McDermott partners Sabine Naugès, Bertrand Delafaye, Charlotte Michellet, Guillaume Kellner, Romain Desmonts and Romain Perray, who examined how organisations can anticipate regulatory shifts, manage information security, access financing, address fiscal constraints, and strengthen resilience in an era of heightened geopolitical and technological risk.

We were delighted to welcome Nathalie Grimbert, Head of the SME Support Office for the Defence Industrial and Technological Base (BITD) within the Directorate General of Armament (DGA) at the French Ministry of Defence, who shared valuable insights into the government’s role in reviewing foreign investment applications and safeguarding national strategic interests.

While the roundtable covered diverse topics, one central message emerged: operating in or investing in strategic industries demands foresight, coordination, and an ability to navigate complexity across every dimension — legal, financial, and operational.

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Extended Screening of Foreign Investment in France: A Risk of Incompatibility with Company Law?

by and | May 7, 2024 | ,

Control of foreign direct investments in France (FDI) has been steadily tightened since 2014. The provisions of Articles L. 151-3 and R. 151-1 et seq. of the French Monetary and Financial Code (CMF), as supplemented by the Decree of December 31, 2019, organize this national screening mechanism based on the prior authorization of certain investments in sectors and activities considered sensitive.

In 2022, of the 131 FDI authorized, 70 were conditionally authorized, not without question as to the compatibility of these commitments with the free movement of capital and company law.

1. The filtering of FDI justifies questioning its compatibility with European requirements, as the European Commission or the Court of Justice is likely to consider it too restrictive. Moreover, it is by no means certain that all commitments imposed by the Minister of the Economy on the foreign investor in order to obtain authorization will pass the proportionality test of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The control of FDI in France is triggered when three cumulative conditions are met:

i. The investor is deemed a foreign investor within the meaning of Article R. 151-1 of the CMF, i.e. any individual of foreign [...]

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How to Determine Which Investors Should be Disclosed Under the Foreign Direct Investment Screening Regime in France, the United Kingdom and the United States

by , and | Apr 15, 2024 |

Where a transaction is carried out by an investment fund, the question of which investors should be disclosed under Foreign Direct Investment will eventually surface. We consider the necessary disclosures under French, US and UK FDI screening.

There is significant potential for divergence as to how new(er) FDI rules are applied in practice, in particular in relation to common structures used by private equity. One question that arises regularly is whether the FDI regimes are catching the limited partner investors (LPs) in the same way as any other direct investors.


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