Arrangements involving current and potential future events, such as taking security and agreeing options, require careful scrutiny under investment screening regimes. It is not safe to assume that a trigger will operate in the same way as under another more developed regulatory regime, such as merger control. Moreover, taking a security or agreeing an option needs to be considered upfront and not just when the security is about to be enforced or the option exercised.
In this piece we consider the position under the UK’s forthcoming National Security & Investment Act (NSI Act) regime and briefly compare this to the position under the recently reformed German regime. We assume that the other requirements for triggering are satisfied and focus on whether a security or an option could in itself take the transaction over the jurisdictional threshold.
Taking security
When a security is actually enforced, then this may well trigger an investment screening regime, as enforcement will typically involve the lender gaining control over the relevant target or its assets which are the subject of the security. The more difficult question, which will likely arise many years earlier at the initial transaction stage, is whether merely taking the security is sufficient.
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