Treasury wants to boost foreign investment review powers, as Congress dissects Nippon, TikTok deals

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. Treasury wants to enhance the power of a little-known, secretive government committee to review deals made between U.S. firms and foreign investors.

This comes as high-profile deals involving foreign investment in the U.S. — like Chinese firm ByteDance’s ownership of popular social media app TikTok and Japanese firm Nippon Steel’s bid to purchase Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel Corp. receive increased scrutiny by lawmakers and even President Joe Biden.

A new proposed rulemaking would strengthen powers for the interagency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States — known as CFIUS — which is tasked with investigating corporate deals for national security concerns and holds power to force the company to divest ownership or change major parts of the firm.

The rulemaking — if finalized — would expand the committee’s subpoena authority, allow the committee to request more information from parties to a proposed sale and expand circumstances when fines can be imposed and their size — from $250,000 to $5 million, where there are misstatements, omissions and failure to file mandatory declarations.

The proposed change comes as the convergence of national security concerns related to foreign investment have increased — as competition intensifies between the world’s biggest powers and the U.S. focuses on growing its domestic supply chains.

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