COVID-19 and CFIUS: Coronavirus Pandemic Slows National Security Reviews

David Fagan is quoted in Corporate Counsel regarding the impact of coronavirus on CFIUS. Mr. Fagan says, “It is not that CFIUS is closed, but there is an impact on CFIUS too, and you have to factor that into your planning.”

He adds that the increasing delays mean that parties that proceed to close a transaction on the basis of a “no action” to a declaration from the committee during this period would be doing so at the risk of later CFIUS action when the committee is back up and running normally in certain cases. Transactions that CFIUS already has accepted for review, however, appear to be minimally affected by the government’s reduced operations.