National Security Counsel

In FIRRMA and ECRA, Congress essentially gave Commerce authority to decide how narrowly or widely to set the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) over non-passive minority investments involving emerging and foundational technologies.

On September 17, 2019, the Treasury Department, on behalf of the full Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, released the long-awaited comprehensive draft regulations to implement the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA).

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is an interagency federal body that screens inbound foreign investments for national security risks, and it is currently putting the finishing touches on its draft regulations to implement FIRRMA.

In recent years, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has taken a much stronger interest in the national security ramifications of sensitive data falling into the hands of foreign adversaries, including the sensitive personal data of American citizens.

The DoD, General Services Administration (GSA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) issued an interim rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement a key provision of the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19 NDAA). 

The US Senate is poised to confirm Tom Feddo to run CFIUS as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Investment Security, increasing the bandwidth of CFIUS at a critical time in its history.