Rebecca Le Flufy, Ross McNaughton and Adrian Toutoungi from Taylor Wessing LLP review the potential impacts of the UK’s National Security and Investment Bill on the life sciences industry and how it could influence future deals.
The National Security and Investment Bill was laid before Parliament by the UK Government on 11 November 2020. The Bill will establish a dual regime for transactions that could give rise to national security concerns. The dual regime will consist of both a mandatory notification regime for transactions in 17 sensitive sectors (at least three of which could catch transactions in the life sciences sector) and a voluntary regime coupled with a call-in power for the Government, allowing it to examine transactions which may give rise to national security concerns. Importantly, this call-in power will have retrospective application, meaning that once the Bill becomes law, the Government will be able to call-in transactions which completed from 12 November 2020 onwards if it considers that they could raise national security concerns.