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 foreign investment still breathe the air of the liberal, if ...
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 enjoys broad authority to regulate the admission of foreign investment ...
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 direct investments (“FDI”) are often taken at the post-establishment phase—after ...
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 prevent foreign investment screening measures from being subject to successful ...
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 exclusively as catalysts for growth and innovation, but instead as ...
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, jurisdictional assessment, inter-agency consultation, risk analysis, possible mitigation negotiations, and ...
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 increasing evidence as to the ways in which this tool ...
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 future contingencies; the evidentiary threshold cannot therefore be set unduly ...
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 understand not only the target business, but also the investor, ...
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 regimes are built on discretion. Screening decisions often turn on assessments of open-ended lists ...
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 well known that domestic investment screening authorities frequently are given ...
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 Transatlantic Dialogue Smooth the Path for Investment in Western Defense?
Introduction Recent shifts in global security have thrust foreign direct investment (FDI) in the defense sector back into the spotlight. A closed-door CELIS Salon, convened policymakers, practitioners, and industry voices in Washington DC on the 13th of January to take stock of how transatlantic investors can navigate the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) while still bolstering European defense capabilities. Although the conversation was held under Chatham House ...
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 of the CELIS-L&G special series. All articles in Law & Geoeconomics are available free of charge via Brill using the access token LGEO4U until 31 December 2026. More details are available at the L&G ...
Continue reading Looking back at 2025 and raising our glass to 2026!
We hope that 2026 has gotten off to a good start for you. We wish it to be a year filled with happiness, success, and, most importantly, peace! While we are looking towards the future, we first take a moment to look back at the past year. 2025 was a tumultuous one, characterised by trade tensions, increased geopolitical competition, and ...
Continue reading Taking Certainty Seriously: the Italian Council of State Overturns the Practice of the National FDI Authority
Author: Andrea Gemmi (BonelliErede, Associate; University of Padova, PhD Candidate) Introduction The recent ruling of the Italian Council of State on the Cedacri case marks a turning point in the interpretation of the national FDI screening regime. This judgment reinforces the principle of legal certainty, challenging years of expansive administrative practice aimed at maximizing preventive control. Beyond its impact on ...
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 December 2026. More details are available at the L&G page here. Introduction: From Liberalisation to Interventionism Over the past decade, regulatory practices in Western economies have shifted dramatically. The optimism of ...
Continue reading CELIS Update on Investment Screening and Economic Security – December 2025
By Helene Schramm with the help of intern Maria-Arancha Simiuc INVESTMENT SCREENING MECHANISMS Switzerland - Swiss Parliament adopts Investment Screening Act On 2 December 2025, the Swiss parliament approved an Investment Screening Act. The regime has a highly limited scope and applies only to investments made by foreign states. The law is subject to a facultative referendum. It is expected ...
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 Brussels on December 11th as the European Commission, Council and Parliament reached agreement on the Foreign Investment Screening Regulation (the 'Regulation'). Over the past few months, with this blog series, ...
Continue reading Building Trust, Not Barriers: Ukraine’s Path to Effective FDI Screening
By Mykyta Nota (AVELLUM, Partner), Anton Arkhypov (AVELLUM, Counsel), Mariia Bykova (AVELLUM, Associate) To most foreigners, Ukraine is the 'breadbasket of Europe' - a land of rich soil where nearly half of all exports come from agriculture. The full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 turned that image on its head, underscoring the country's engineering strength, industrial resilience, and its capacity to ...
Continue reading The “Shifting Balance” of the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR). Some Preliminary Considerations on the ADNOC/Covestro Case and the Regulation’s Balancing Test
By Lena Hornkohl (University of Vienna) and Pierfrancesco Mattiolo (University of Antwerp) The central purpose of the EU's Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) is clear: to tackle distortions in the internal market caused by subsidies granted by non-EU states. But what if these subsidy-fuelled activities not only distort but also create positive effects? How should they be measured and assessed? This ...
Continue reading Is the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation Delivering on Its Promise After Two Years of Implementation?
By Marina Maccagno (Senior Manager EU & Competition Law, PwC Legal Italy) The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) has now been in force for over two years, and its implementation has proven to be quite challenging. As the dust settles, the question remains: is the FSR truly delivering on its promise of a level playing field, or is it just ...
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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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