Investment Screening in the European Union

Steffen Hindelang and Jens Hillebrand Pohl for two days devoted to the new EU investment screening framework at the Academy of European Law ERA Conference on Investment Screening in the European Union, 12-13 November 2020.

Steffen is professor (wsr) at the Department of Law of the Syddansk Universitet - University of Southern Denmark and adjunct faculty at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Technical University Berlin. He is co-editor of “A Common European Law on Investment Screening (CELIS)”, YSEC Yearbook of Socio-Economic Constitutions 2020, Springer, forthcoming, which presents the very first, interdisciplinarily grounded, comprehensive appraisal of a future European law on FDI control. Together with Andreas Moberg of Gothenburg University, Steffen initiated CELIS in 2019 and is one of the directors of the CELIS Institute.

Jens is Course Director at the Academy of European Law ERA in the Business Law Section. He is also adjunct lecturer at Maastricht University where he pursues a PhD on the law and practice of FDI control. He is also a director of the CELIS Institute.

Objective

Practical aspects for Member State screening authorities and for in-house and external legal counsel acting for foreign investors and target companies in European M&A will be addressed.

Key topics

• How to interpret and apply Regulation 2019/452 in practice
• How to identify and mitigate risks to EU and Member State security or public order
• Impact on EU foreign direct investments (FDI), takeovers and M&A transactions
• Ownership due diligence for purposes of foreign investment control
• Best practices for Member State authorities, foreign investors, legal counsel and financial intermediaries
• Legal or administrative recourse against screening decisions