DealLawyers.com Blog

As we noted in March, the recently ended 76-day partial government shutdown delayed some dealmaking, even though the Treasury and all CFIUS agencies (except DHS) were funded throughout. Now that the President signed DHS funding legislation, CFIUS is resuming normal operations, but some delays may continue. This Freshfields blog shares these key takeaways on the current state of CFIUS review:

– CFIUS clocks are no longer being tolled, and it will begin accepting new filings.

– CFIUS continued substantive analysis of already-accepted filings during the shutdown but did not accept any new filings, creating a significant backlog that will affect review timelines going forward.

– CFIUS has been confirming the new statutory deadlines applicable to matters that were already on the clock at the time of the shutdown.

– It will likely take several months for the post-shutdown backlog to clear and for CFIUS to return to pre-shutdown levels of predictability for initiating reviews.

– The backlog increases the likelihood that, until Fall, new filings will take longer to be accepted, notices will be pushed into the investigation phase, and declarations will be resolved with a no-action letter or a request for a long-form notice.

For CFIUS-related resources, check out our “National Security Considerations” Practice Area.

– Meredith Ervine