UK promises to increase transparency of national security reviews

James Marshall was quoted by Global Competition Review regarding the UK government’s plans to update its guidance on the National Security and Investment Act following a published report that claimed the “high degree of ambiguity and lack of transparency” of the act “makes the UK vulnerable to hostile actors”.

James explained that some of the uncertainty is because the regime is new. Parties are still figuring out how to best approach these new procedures.

Cases under that NSIA are not assigned case officers so there’s “not a clear sense of continuity”, unlike merger reviews before the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission, he noted.

“Being given better access to ISU officials and having a dedicated case team assigned to a deal could help provide greater clarity,” James said.