Germany Expands Foreign Investment Control; Quantum Technology on List to Trigger a Review

(JD.Supra.LegalNews) Foreign investment control has become a key factor in M&A deals and 2020 was a particularly eventful year. A large number of countries have recently introduced foreign investment control regimes (or tightened their existing rules) and made use of them. The German government plans another far-reaching expansion of foreign investment control.
Future deals will be made more difficult by the fact that the catalogue of companies whose acquisition is subject to notification will be significantly expanded once again. For the first time, an M&A deal will also trigger a notification or an ex officio review. Furthermore, the draft confirms that share increases beyond existing stake-holdings are subject to foreign investment control, even if the thresholds were already exceeded before the transaction.
Tt is positive that the German government has decided against using very broad terms such as “critical technologies” from the EU FDI Screening Regulation. Instead, the draft contains a list of concrete individual target activities. Even though the list is extremely long and will probably grow in the future, the concrete definition of the target activities triggering a review avoids uncertainties. Quantum technology is one of the technologies now expanded categorically.
The categories for quantum technology now include quantum computing, quantum computers, quantum sensors, quantum metrology, quantum cryptography, quantum communications, and quantum simulation.