The EU is concerned about subsidies granted by non-EU countries that could distort competition in EU markets. In May 2021 it published a proposal for a regulation (the Foreign Subsidies Regulation) that would introduce, amongst other instruments, a new notification regime for mergers and acquisitions where either the acquirer or one of the merging undertakings has received subsidies from a third country. This is a new requirement that is independent of merger control or foreign direct investment (FDI) filing requirements, and would run in parallel to them.
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