USDA has launched a new online filing system for the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, which requires foreign buyers of U.S. farmland to report their transactions to the agency.

Germany hasn’t yet come to a decision about whether it should put in place new rules to screen outbound investments, including for investments in China, said Susanne Baumann, Germany’s ambassador to the U.K.

SoftBank, a Japan-based investment management firm, and DigitalBridge, a global digital infrastructure investment firm, will need approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. and several other regulators before they can complete their merger, DigitalBridge said in its latest SEC filing. Along with CFIUS, they will also need approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority, and the EU under the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation. SoftBank plans to buy DigitalBridge for about $4 billion, according to SoftBank's Dec. 29 press release.

The Treasury Department’s existing outbound investment rule will remain in effect until the agency issues new regulations to implement a newly enacted law on the matter, Treasury said in an updated FAQ Dec. 23.

USDA is seeking public comments on ways it can improve its reporting and filing requirements under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, which it said could help the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. better screen investments in land that may pose national security risks.

Although the U.S. has had “limited success” in coordinating foreign investment screening with the EU, partly due to a lack of consensus among the bloc’s member states, recent developments suggest that the U.S. should try again, the Atlantic Council said in a new report on China policy.

A partial U.S. government shutdown Oct. 1 likely would slow but not stop the work of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., Freshfields said in a client alert Sept. 30.

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., introduced a bill last week to direct the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to prioritize convincing Canada and Mexico to institute a foreign investment review board similar to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS.

Companies should expect “increased scrutiny, broader sector coverage, and potentially longer review timelines” for investments in Europe due to new and changing foreign direct investment screening regulations, Morgan Lewis said last week in a client alert.

The EU and the Czech Republic should reject India-based Aurobindo Pharma’s proposed $5.5 billion acquisition of Prague-based Zentiva, the Coalition for a Prosperous America said Aug. 20, arguing that the deal would threaten European pharmaceutical security because of Aurobindo’s connection to China.