Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Thad McBride provided insight on President Trump’s decision to block Broadcom’s bid for Qualcomm and the intervening role the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) played in connection with the proposed transaction.
In a letter made public earlier this month, CFIUS expressed its concern about the transaction – even before the parties had finalized the terms of the deal. “I’ve never seen a letter that was this preemptive,” Thad explained. At the same time, this action is in keeping with CFIUS’s increasingly tough reviews of foreign acquisitions of U.S. companies, especially in tech sectors such as cybersecurity, information security, big data analytics, 5G wireless networks and anything related to defense. Thad discussed one proposed transaction that CFIUS recently blocked in this October 2017 blog post.
Thad noted that even “seemingly innocuous” deals have exceeded the standard 30-day CFIUS review and have triggered an extended 45-day investigation. Thad also noted that reviews are being extended to investigation in part because “the committee is as busy as it ever has been.”
The full article, “Trump’s Broadcom Order Echoes Through Silicon Valley,” was published on The Deal on March 13, 2018, and is accessible online (subscription required).