Foreign Investment Monitor
As governments expand foreign investment controls into new sectors and sharper tools, scrutiny is increasing - becoming more political and a more critical consideration in deal negotiations. Explore what that means for global investment.
Regulators are no longer focused solely on who is investing - they are asking what the investment enables: what it controls, what critical systems it touches and what strategic influence it gives rise to.
This edition of Foreign Investment Monitor examines key FDI developments shaping the global investment landscape, including:
- Digital infrastructure: Data centers enter the security frame
As AI and cloud demand accelerates, data centers are being reassessed as strategic infrastructure. For investors, FDI risk now turns on data access, control and resilience.
- Crossroads for media deals: Plurality, foreign ownership and regulatory scrutiny
Media transactions are attracting increased, multi-layered scrutiny as European governments reassess who controls news, information and public discourse.
- From screening to structuring: FDI risk reshapes M&A deal terms
Foreign investment controls are no longer just a customary regulatory condition to closing. In sensitive cross-border M&A, they now influence price, timing, remedies and contractual risk allocation from the outset.
- CFIUS: Is the Known Investor Program the golden ticket for investors?
The Treasury’s proposed KIP points to a more efficient CFIUS for repeat, low-risk investors, but its value will depend on whether it delivers meaningful procedural advantages.
- Japan builds its CFIUS: Broader scope, deeper scrutiny
Japan is tightening foreign investment review, but the more significant change is institutional. A regime once focused on formal filings is becoming more substantive, intelligence-led and security-driven.
- Austrian FDI: Managing heightened scrutiny, Phase II proceedings and policy shifts
Active enforcement and broader interpretation of sensitive sectors underscore an evolving European landscape of increasingly interventionist investment screening.
The question is no longer simply whether a transaction can be cleared, but how it will be assessed against national policy priorities.
