The coronavirus crisis will have deep policy implications for global antitrust and foreign investment regimes.
As the dust starts to settle on the immediate public health emergency and governments around the world attempt to navigate the difficult economic and financial recovery ahead, this crisis will exacerbate existing geopolitical trends and push competition and foreign investment regimes more strongly towards the political realm.
Will the use of competition policy as a tool to manage the “sustainable reconstruction” effort in Europe and in the US signal the end of the current era of relative independence competition agencies have enjoyed? The calls for competition policy to serve industrial and sovereignty agendas, already present before the crisis, will only grow louder as governments take stock of the obstacles they faced in their public health response. Long-accepted definitions of consumer welfare and public interest may shift to start accommodating supply chain, employment and even environmental impacts.
Further, the coronavirus crisis is giving renewed impetus to the backlash against globalisation, throwing cross-border investment projects under the intense scrutiny of new protectionist foreign investment regimes which have mushroomed.
Brunswick’s antitrust and regulatory experts discuss how companies can best navigate a complex set of different stakeholder demands on their investment agendas.
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