CELIS Blog
The CELIS Blog: Fueling the Conversation on Economic Security. The CELIS Blog is a unique forum for current debates on international investment control and economic security law and practice more broadly. It brings the latest developments and analysis to you. From economic security (law) experts – to economic security (law) experts.
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CELIS–Arnold & Porter Blog Series on Investment Security x Investment Arbitration
Introducing the CELIS–Arnold & Porter Initiative on Investment Security x Investment Arbitration
Authors: Steffen Hindelang (Uppsala University; CELIS Institute), Helene Schramm (CELIS Institute) and Liam McGrath (CELIS Institute) Most international rules governing ...
Continue reading Constraints on the State’s Right to Screen Foreign Investments Prior to Market Entry
Authors: Steffen Hindelang (Uppsala University; CELIS Institute), Helene Schramm (CELIS Institute) and Liam McGrath (CELIS Institute) Introduction As a starting point, a State ...
Continue reading Post-Establishment Phase: FDI Screening Decisions and the Treatment of Retroactive Measures in Investment Arbitration
Authors: Bart Wasiak (Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer (UK) LLP) and Naina Gupta (Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer (UK) LLP) Introduction Decisions concerning the screening of foreign ...
Continue reading Shielding Foreign Investment Screening from Challenge under Investment Treaties
Author: Dr. Joshua Paine (University of Bristol) Introduction This post considers how States can design international investment agreements (“IIAs”) to ...
Continue reading German Administrative Courts Take the Plunge – First Rulings on German Investment Screening Procedures and their Time Frame
Authors: Dr. Roland M. Stein (BLOMSTEIN) and Henriette Wohlschläger (BLOMSTEIN) Introduction In light of the prevailing tense global geopolitical climate, investments are no longer regarded ...
Continue reading Between Deadlines and Discretion: Timely Decision-Making in Investment Screening
Authors: Xueji Su (University of Macau) and Alessandro Zocchia (University of Macau) Introduction: The Pocket Veto Phenomenon Investment screening involves a procedurally layered process involving notification, ...
Continue reading Fair and Equitable Investment Screening
Author: Dr. Bálint Kovács (University of Szeged) Introduction With the widespread adoption of investment screening by Western states, there is ...
Continue reading Legal Standards, Evidentiary Threshold, Transparency and Due Process in the Context of Investment Screening and Investment Disputes
Author: Jonas Hallberg I. Legal Standards and Evidentiary Threshold Security assessments of a prospective investment necessarily involve an assessment of ...
Continue reading Disclosure and Confidentiality in Investment Screening
Author: Dorieke Overduin (Sovereign Arbitration Advisors) Introduction In order to assess risks posed by foreign direct investments to national security, authorities must ...
Continue reading Investment Screening Between Discretion and Arbitrariness – Charting the Borderlands
Authors: Steffen Hindelang (CELIS Institute; Uppsala University), Helene Schramm (CELIS Institute) and Liam McGrath (CELIS Institute) Introduction Foreign investment screening ...
Continue reading Navigating Treaty Liability for Conditional Approvals in Foreign Investment Screening
Author: Dean Merriman (Barrister at the Victorian Bar) I. Imposition of Conditions on Foreign Investment: Anecdotes from Australia It is ...
Continue reading Parallel Proceedings at the Intersection of FDI Screening and Investment Arbitration
Authors: Sally Pei (Arnold & Porter) and Joel Dahlquist (Arnold & Porter) Introduction States in Europe and beyond are increasingly screening ...
Continue reading CELIS Special Blog Series on the Revision of the FDI Screening Regulation
Introducing: The Foreign (Direct) Investment Screening Regulation – A blog series on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/452
Part I in the CELIS Blog Series on the Revision of the FDI Screening Regulation. Autors: Lena Hornkohl (University of Vienna)[1], Andrew Hill (AmCham EU, Brussels), Floor Doppen (University of ...
Continue reading Tug-of-War? Determining the mandatory scope for the new FDI Screening Regulation
Part 2 in the CELIS blogseries on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/452. Authors: Andrew Hill (AmCham EU, Brussels), Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp), Leonard von Rummel (Partner, Blomstein) ...
Continue reading To Screen or not to Screen? Defining the Deals that Count
Part 3 in the CELIS blogseries on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/452. Authors: Andrew Hill (AmCham EU, Brussels), Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp), Kaarli Eichhorn (Antitrust Partner, Jones ...
Continue reading The Devil is in the Details – The Real Screening Report
Part 4 in the CELIS blogseries on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/452. Authors: Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp), Andrew Hill (AmCham EU, Brussels) Introduction The Commission published its 5th ...
Continue reading The Elephant in the Room: Subsidiarity in Investment Screening in the EU
Part 5 in the CELIS blogseries on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/45 Authors: Andrew Hill (AmCham EU[1]), and Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp) Introduction White smoke poured over ...
Continue reading Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, What’s the Outcome of the Trilogue?
Part 6 in the CELIS blogseries on the revision of FDI Screening Regulation 2019/45 Authors: Andrew Hill (Amcham Europe), and Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp) Introduction The clock has started ...
Continue reading CELIS–L&G Blog Series
Introducing: the CELIS-L&G Blogseries
Welcome, readers, to the inaugural blog post of a new collaboration between the academic journal Law & Geoeconomics (L&G) and the CELIS Institute. To set the tone, we decided to ...
Continue reading Proxies, Partners, or Opponents? Rethinking Business–Government Relations in Geoeconomic Competition
Authors: Olivier Schmitt (Royal Danish Defence College), Anna Vlasiuk Nibe (University of Southern Denmark) All articles in Law & Geoeconomics are available free of charge via Brill using the access token LGEO4U until 31 ...
Continue reading Why Economic Security Depends on Bureaucracy: The Hidden Side of Derisking
Authors: M. Di Giulio (Associate Professor, Università di Genova), F. Baraldi (Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), and M. Sguazzini (Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Università di Genova) This blog is part ...
Continue reading Can – and should – the EU align with US economic security policy?
Varg Folkman (Policy Analyst, the European Policy Centre) Introduction Back during Europe's summer of discontent in 2025, it went somewhat overlooked - amidst the larger trade story - that the ...
Continue reading The State of Exception in EU Investment Law
Author: Jochem de Kok (Affiliate Fellow at the Amsterdam Centre for European Law and Governance of the University of Amsterdam and Senior Associate at A&O Shearma) This blog post is ...
Continue reading Regulating Critical Minerals and Economic Security in South America: Brazil, Chile, and Argentina in Comparative Perspective
Authors: Natália de Lima Figueiredo (Assistant Professor, Federal University of São Paolo) & Michelle Ratton Sanchez Badin (Associate Professor, FGV São Paulo School of Law) Introduction[1] "Economic security" has quickly ...
Continue reading The Small Yard Problem: How America and Japan De-Risk from China
Author: Timothy Cichanowicz (PhD Candidate, University of Kansas) This blog is part of the CELIS-L&G special series. All articles in Law & Geoeconomics are available free of charge via Brill using the ...
Continue reading Supply Chain Secondary Sanctions: How China Weaponised Lithuania’s Trade Links
Author: Verónica Fraile del Álamo (PhD Researcher, Australian National University) & Darren J. Lim (Senior Lecturer, Australian National University) This blog is part of the CELIS-L&G special series. All articles ...
Continue reading EU Sanctions and Investment Arbitration: An Attempt at Moving the Goalposts through Increased Securitisation?
Author: Alexandros Bakos ((Postdoctoral researcher, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, College of Law) Introduction After the Achmea and Komstroy sagas, marking the end of intra-European Union (EU) investor-state arbitration, the Union ...
Continue reading Latest Blog Posts
Can the “buy European” requirement counter the challenges of the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base? A critical perspective on EDIS and EDIP
By Grith Skovgaard Ølykke[1], Gregory Kegels, Caroline Buts and Cind Du Bois. This post has been prepared within the framework of the BEPIDS project (Belgian Economic Potential in the Industry of Defence and Security), a project funded largely through the 'Belgian Federal Public Planning Service Science Policy' (BELSPO) and partially by the Belgian 'Royal Higher Institute for Defence' (RHID). [1] Disclaimer: ...
Continue reading CELIS Update on Investment Screening – October 2024
European Union - European Commission releases Fourth Annual Report on the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union On 17 October 2024, the European Commission (“EC”) released the Fourth Annual Report on the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union (“Report”) for the year 2023. The Report is divided into 4 chapters and based on reports by the ...
Continue reading Some Reflections on the Investment Control Regime in Sweden: Unnecessary Obstacles to Legitimate Financing?
By Alexander Tham and Maja Kristiansson-Gran The Swedish Act on Screening of Foreign Direct Investments (the "FDI Act") entered into force on 1 December 2023. The FDI Act is the first of its kind in Sweden, at least in the modern legislative landscape. (Pouya Ghotbi 2023 has given an overview, not only of the FDI Act in itself, but also the ...
Continue reading The Swedish Screening of Foreign Direct Investments Act
By Dr. iur. Magnus Schmauch, Louise Sörelind, Martyna Lechowska, Gustav Eiroff Introduction The Swedish Act on the Screening of Foreign Direct Investments (Sw. lag (2023:560) om granskning av utländska direktinvesteringar) (the "FDI Act") entered into force on 1 December 2023. Closing in on the first anniversary of the FDI Act, Dr. iur. Magnus Schmauch et al., here briefly describe ...
Continue reading Protecting EU Sanctions by Invoking the Denial of Benefits Clause of the Energy Charter Treaty
By Johannes Tropper, University of Vienna Introduction Recently, on 24 September 2024, the Secretariat of the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), received a communication from the EU and all its member states, except Hungary. According to the notification, they are exercising their right under the ECT to deny the benefits of investment protection under the ECT to Russian-owned/controlled and Belarusian-owned/controlled investors ...
Continue reading Balancing Security and Economics: The EU Investment Screening Mechanism
By Floor Doppen (University of Antwerp), Antonio Calcara (Vrije Universiteit Brussels) and Dirk De Bièvre (University of Antwerp) In the EU, Member States and the Commission are increasingly turning to trade and investment tools to address national security issues. In the face of concerns over technology leakage, supply chain resilience, dependencies in critical industries, data security and a more acute ...
Continue reading The European Commission’s Fourth Annual Report on FDI Screening
By Sophie Bohnert, CELIS Blog A. Introduction This October is the month of investment screening. Not only did CFIS 2024, hosted by the CELIS Institute and convened by Steffen Hindelang and Roland Stein, take place in Paris (France) from 16 to 18 October 2024. It is also the month in which the European Commission ("EC") usually fulfils its annual reporting ...
Continue reading (Bio)Fueled to Combat Climate Change? An Analysis of the WTO Panel Decision in the EU-Palm Oil (Malaysia) Dispute
By Isha Das, University of Passau I. Introduction The Panel report in the EU-Palm Oil (Malaysia) dispute[i] was circulated on 5 March 2024. It is an important addition to the list of environment-related international trade disputes brought before the World Trade Organisation ('WTO'). This is the first time that a WTO Panel has had to deal with measures aiming to ...
Continue reading FDI And FSR Enforcement Trends in Europe: July and August 2024 – Hard Times For Chinese Investments In Europe?
Note from the Editors This post was first published on the Baker McKenzie Blog. By Paul Johnson, Pavlo Prokhorov and Beau Maes, all Baker McKenzie This summer was marked by a particular focus and scrutiny by authorities on transactions involving investors from China, which is typically considered a "risk" jurisdiction from an EU FDI and FSR perspective. The four decisions ...
Continue reading CFIS 24: Paris Insights – Securing Europe’s Future: Investment Screening and Economic Security in the Context of EU Enlargement
A Note from the Editors The CELIS Blog is launching its very first special series of blog posts ahead of this year's CELIS Forum on Investment Screening (CFIS). Our Programme Sherpas, promising young academics and practitioners in the field, share their views on the topics we will be discussing in the various panels during CFIS. The views expressed in the ...
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The CELIS Blog always welcomes posts from economic security professionals that address current issues in international investment screening and economic security law and practice. Would you like to contribute to the Blog? Please contact our editors: blog@celis.institute
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