How Covid-19 measures affect investment control in Italy and the EU?
1 April 2020

This note addresses the following 3 developments in investment screening caused by Covid-19 outbreak:

  • The Cura Italia decree suspended the timeframe for administrative procedures, including Golden Power, but lodging an urgency request could be a way to avoid the suspension;
  • Consob lowered the minimum shareholding threshold for transparency obligations for 48 Italian listed companies. This suggests that the possible direction of the new April measures will be the protection of listed companies, also through Golden Power;
  • New guidelines by the European Commission call upon EU member states to use national FDI screening tools to the full extent, especially for healthcare-related assets. A revival of investment screening all across Europe is foreseeable, ahead of the application of the new EU Regulation as of October 2020.

Our Golden Power Task Force, in coordination with the Covid-19 Task Force, explores the topic in the document available here.