France Archives - Regulatory & International Trade

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

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.

Strengthening Foreign Investment Screening in France

Decree no. 2023-1293 of December 28, 2023, on foreign investment in France came into force on January 1, 2024.

The purpose of the decree is to continue the monitoring of non-European investors exceeding the threshold of 10% of voting rights in companies listed on a regulated market, introduced by Decree No. 2020- 892 of July 22, 2020. This follows the statements made by the French Ministry of the Economy (the “MoE“) to the press on January 5, 2023, announcing that the measure would be made permanent.