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In 2023 and to date in 2024, CFIUS has issued three times more penalties than it had in the previous nearly 50-years since its establishment

WASHINGTON — Today, in a continuing evolution and sharpening of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) as a critical national security tool, and in furtherance of greater transparency, the Treasury Department updated the CFIUS website to share more details and guidance with the public and the investing community about how CFIUS approaches compliance and enforcement, as well as a list of its penalty actions.  

“In the last few years, CFIUS has redoubled its resources and focus on enforcement and accountability, and that is by design: if CFIUS requires companies to make certain commitments to protect national security and they fail to do so, there must be consequences,” said Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Investment Security Paul Rosen.  “Today’s penalty updates underscore CFIUS’s commitment to accountability and the protection of national security.” 

CFIUS is an interagency committee authorized to review certain transactions involving foreign investment in the United States in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.  The Treasury Department chairs CFIUS. 

The website update shares detailed information about all of the civil monetary penalties imposed by CFIUS over the last few years, including the largest penalty CFIUS has ever issued.  For each penalty action, CFIUS is providing added transparency by describing the nature of the conduct that gave rise to the penalty and mitigating and aggravating factors, among other details, where applicable and consistent with the CFIUS’s confidentiality obligations.  In 2023 and 2024 to date, CFIUS has issued three times more penalties than CFIUS had previously issued in its nearly 50-year history. 

In 2022 Treasury issued the first ever Penalty and Enforcement Guidelines, which provided the public with information about how the Committee assesses violations of the laws and regulations that govern transaction parties, including potential breaches of CFIUS mitigation agreements.   These Guidelines also signaled an increased focus on enforcement and accountability, and today’s update provides further clarity and transparency about the Committee’s enforcement work since 2022, which is ongoing.

See below links for new sections of the website.

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