National Security and Investment Bill (Second sitting)

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 24th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. Dr Lenihan, I am keen to know more about whether, other than in the US, you have seen good exemplar approaches to screening investments into these sectors; we spoke about Japan and Germany a moment ago. Can you give examples which we might learn from?

Dr Lenihan: I do think the US system is the most institutionalised that we have, and the best at the moment. That being said, Germany’s system is very good; it has caught quite a bit. The German system has also been very good about regularly updating, changing and adapting its regulations as it sees new emerging threats to itself. They seem to have good feed-in across Government and they are exceptionally good at co-ordinating with other states in terms of information of concern.

In terms of national security review, Canadian and Australian systems are quite good. The problem with those systems is that they tend to do national interest reviews at the same time or in tandem with their national security reviews. Over the long term, including national interest in the regime has had an impact on how they are perceived in terms of their openness to foreign direct investment abroad. In the OECD’s FDI restrictedness index, Canada and Australia rank far lower than the US, the UK, Germany and France, and I think this is because of their inclusion of national interest concerns. Similarly, on the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness index, they rank far lower. That does not provide investors with the type of clarity that they need. In general, we see that investors tend not to be dissuaded from investing just because there is a new foreign direct investment regime, as long as that regime is seen to have clear regulatory guidance, is transparent, and is applied consistently over time.

France sometimes gets quite a bad reputation for economic nationalism, but its review mechanism is also quite good at catching potential threats to national security. Japan is an interesting case. It has been so restrictive for so long that it is a little harder to compare with the other western countries. Its system has been tied in again to an overarching inward investment regime that has been restrictive towards foreign investment for other means beyond national security, so I find that country to be less of a comparator for these purposes. I hope that answers the question.

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

Q It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham.

I have found your comments particularly interesting, Dr Lenihan. My own background is in the financial world, where I was involved in cross-border M and A and quoted equity transactions. I fully accept the premise of the Bill, which I think is important and has to be put into effect, and I draw encouragement from what you are saying about other regimes, but I am still left wondering a little bit whether, in practice, it will be really quite difficult for us to put into effect. Your point about the necessity of expertise among staff is crucial. Having sat at the centre of the process, I recognise that the point you make about a huge amount of information flowing across, especially in respect of unquoted companies, is very important; often, there is not much established information in the public domain. That first point is very important. The second point is that there is a very complex mechanism of market sensitivity as well. I do not quite know how this system intervenes with that. Also, within the UK itself there is a culture of openness, which has been touched on before, and in some respects we are a very different country from the others, particularly given the strength of the City of London. We therefore have the ability to transact in a way that some other countries do not, and a different culture.

The other point I wanted to raise and to hear your comments on is that there is a danger of political interference. I know that that is not the intention, but it must be a hazard in this process. What happens if the Government get it wrong about a company? Could not that be interpreted as political interference rather than seeking to establish a security risk?

Dr Lenihan: I started my career in mergers and acquisitions in aerospace and defence M and A, in London. I think you make an important point: the UK has historically been the most open country to foreign direct investment on most indices and indicators. That perception is strong, and I do not think that that culture of open investment will or should change with the introduction of the regime. To the contrary, it actually gives you one of the best starting points that any country has to do this.

As I said, on the whole, in the Bill as written, and in the statement of policy intent behind it, it is very clear that the powers for review and intervention should be used only for an identified risk of national security, and not on the grounds of national interest. Regimes that are based only on national security, like that in the US but also Germany and France—even with a very different culture in many ways—have not seen a lowering of levels of foreign direct investment over time, because they have introduced, modified or kept these regimes up to date. It is because, on the one hand, the stable environment that they provide and that the UK will definitely provide for foreign investors, is far more attractive than any uptick in cost from having to get up to speed on a new regime; also, they are able to retain these global perceptions of openness to foreign investment and ease of doing business because of the way in which the rules are applied. As long as the rules are applied consistently, and with clear reasons behind their use, and applied consistently and transparently over time, it should be okay.

The Bill provides for a lot of regulatory guidance, which needs to come forward in a clear and very easily comprehensible and understandable manner. As long as that happens, it should be okay. Global Britain should still be the proponent of liberal economic values that it always will be, while also being able to demonstrate to itself and to its allies that it is able to protect itself from this type of investment.

Going forward, Britain’s relationship with many of its Five Eyes allies is going to depend on having a comprehensive regime of this nature that is used well. Under FIRRMA, under US law, for example, the UK is an exempt foreign investor in certain categories—one of three with Canada and Australia. It has been stated that for that to continue––it is going to be reviewed––it needs to have a regime to protect itself. We can talk about this later, but part of that is about the potential concern about not just the ability to share intelligence on these issues, but about acquisition laundering, export controls and all these issues that tumble on behind that can affect investment, trade and intelligence-sharing relationships over time. That is important.

The research evidence shows that foreign investment is not deterred unless there is a problem in how this is applied. There has been politicisation of cases; demonstrated proportionality of response is also extremely important. There are many cases in which a threat to national security can be mitigated by agreements and undertakings without needing to block a deal. When you look at the modern history of foreign direct investment intervention across Europe and the US––even if you look at Russia and China and how they behave––the preference is, where possible, to mitigate national security concerns through comprehensive agreements, and that can be done in a host of ways. It can be that you have a board of directors that is only UK nationals, or that you require divestment of a certain black box technology company to another UK company or a friendly allied country. Whatever it may be, historically, there has been a preference for that type of action to be taken. Vetoes of cases are actually quite rare since world war one, when we first really saw this type of issue pop up.

The concern is if we see the UK blocking deals where it could mitigate because a deal has become a political hockey puck. In today’s world, where this is something that is constantly discussed in the Financial Times and The New York Times, whereas it was not 15 years ago, any case has the potential to be discussed widely in the political debate. The question is how it is treated by Government and how other countries perceive that treatment. I know that I have used US examples quite a bit, but if you look at US-China investment, China still invests a lot in the US, even though it complains every time a deal is blocked or mitigated. The reason behind that is because this is a sovereign right under customary international law, and China does the same thing when it has the same concerns. It is only if a case becomes truly politicised that there is an issue.

To give you an example, in 2005 in the US, the case of Dubai Ports World and P&O, which was a takeover of a UK company, became overly politicised in the US system. It is one of the only real examples where it has happened, and that was because there were a few US lawmakers who had a completely different view of the risk and relationship of the US vis-à-vis the United Arab Emirates than the Department of State or the Department of Defence. That is quite rare but what ended up happening was US lawmakers seeking to block a deal when most reasoned professionals in the industry and in various Government Departments thought that any risk could be mitigated simply in a host of other ways.

In the case of overuse, overbalancing, misuse, politicisation, whatever you want to call this tool of economic statecraft, there was a momentary blip in relations between the US and the UAE. There was a momentary stalling of trade talks, change in the currency basket and some uncomfortable months, but the relationship was strong enough to survive and it usually is. This is not really an aspect of going to war. I think the key is proportionality in response, how it is applied, and it is about consistency and transparency. The Bill is well written in many ways, but how it is used can go any number of ways, so it is about how the UK uses it going forward.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Dr Lenihan. There are lots of Members wanting to speak and we have limited time, so I will try to get through some quickly. I will call Stephen Flynn, Mark Garnier, then Stephen Kinnock.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

We have to end this session at half-past 3, so I think that this will be the last question and it will come from Simon Baynes.

[Simon Baynes]

Actually, Mr Kinnock has asked my question, Sir Graham.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Garnier]

Q May I follow on from that question about the resources? There is talk about 1,800 companies coming forward and voluntarily disclosing that this transaction is going on, but I am just as interested in what happens with those companies that do not disclose this? I am not for a moment suggesting that there are a huge number of dishonest actors involved in the corporate finance market, but given the fact that the threshold was reduced to £1 million a year under the recent review, there are an awful lot of small businesses with turnover of about £1 million a year that are not very well resourced for their corporate governance functions and that could easily miss the requirement to disclose, should a transaction come through that is enticing for the shareholders, who are presumably offered the same as the directors. Are you confident that the Government have in place sufficient resources to be able to police the whole sector, to make sure that we are not missing out on a number of transactions that are going through? Even if we do, are we getting in there quick enough to make sure that the intellectual damage is not done by the time we have found out what is going on?

David Petrie: That is a very difficult question. We will find out—that is the answer to that. I think businesses working in sectors where there is a real threat to national security know that. They know that they are involved in weapons design or designing software that could have a dual use. In advising companies over the years, I have found that no one knows better than the company directors about the value of their assets and their business, both from a market perspective and to competitors or others seeking to gain access to their technology.

The Bill has been in discussion for some years now, and the advisory community is well aware of its existence and of the Government’s desire to put this legislation on the statute book, so I do not think there will be many corporate finance advisers for whom the Bill emerging last week was a surprise. I am very sympathetic to the points made about small companies falling under the provisions of the Bill, but I hope that it will be possible for them to complete what, in the first instance, is a five-page questionnaire—when completed, it could run to 20 pages or more—at a relatively low cost.

To my earlier point, I hope they are able to engage in formal and meaningful dialogue with the unit at the earliest possible opportunity by saying, “This is what we do, and this is what we are worried about.” They have to say, “We’re concerned about this. These are the people from whom we are hoping to attract investment to take the business to the next stage. How do you feel about our business, and how do you feel about the people we are talking to? How does the Government feel about xyz corporation?” I think that kind of steer would help remove a great deal of uncertainty from the circumstances that you have set out.

[Simon Baynes]

Q Thank you, Mr Petrie, for a very interesting presentation. I want to look at two areas. One was touched on by the previous witness: the inclusion of not only businesses, but tangible and intangible assets. That is one issue. The second is the acquisition of material influence over qualifying entities’ policy being another trigger point. I would have thought that these are more subjective—perhaps I am wrong—in terms of how you define them, whereas the other trigger points are obviously very clear cut. There are different levels of voting shares in the qualifying entity. I think the previous witness was somewhat surprised to see the tangible and intangible assets element of it and said that this goes further than other similar regimes in other countries. Can you comment first on whether you are surprised or whether you think it makes perfect sense? Secondly, is it easy to define the material influence and the assets, either intangible or tangible?

David Petrie: On the question of tangible assets, it really depends on what we are talking about. Again, it was trailed in the White Paper and the Green Paper that assets would also be within scope, so it is not going to be a surprise. It depends very much on the nature of those assets. In a relatively small country, the ability to acquire land or other buildings—strategic assets—immediately next to a sensitive military installation is, presumably, now included within scope because people who know about these things think it ought to be. I think the investment community will have a degree of sympathy there.

With intangible assets, that is a much more difficult question. It depends on the extent to which ownership of those assets is necessary in order for a malign actor to have the control or the information that they might need. It is possible to gain access to intellectual property through means other than ownership, so the question here is, how might those intangible assets be applied in ways that might prejudice our national security in some way? Again, that is something that the unit is going to have to assess on a case-by-case basis.

It makes sense to include assets that could be sold separately, without the sale of shares in a business. Companies often do that. They may well sell a parcel of patents, or parcel up a division and sell it on because it is no longer core to their operating activities. That is understandable. The investment community will understand that. In short, it is not a surprise, and we are going to have to find our way through this on a case-by-case basis.

[Simon Baynes]

Q Could you expand on one or two examples of such intangible assets? You have stated patents. Could you illustrate what you understand to be such assets?

David Petrie: That would be the most obvious example. There are things like industrial designs, blueprints or chemical processes that may not be subject to patents. It is typically those aspects of production and design that it is necessary to ensure would be in the scope of this kind of legislation.

Much of the discussion that has led to the publication of the Bill has been around the ownership of shares or of the business—as to whether that is actually the bit that malign actors might want to get hold of. That may not be what really interests them with the business. It may well be intellectual property or these other assets, which it is necessary to separately define. If they are able to get hold of those without buying the company, then it seems to follow that it makes sense to include that within the scope of this Bill.

[Simon Baynes]

Q But they would be quite difficult to police, would they not? How would you know—

David Petrie: Yes. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the job of this new investment security unit is going to be straightforward. In fact, we are absolutely not suggesting that. It is going to be absolutely essential for Government Departments to work together and, going back to my original point, for this unit to be extremely well resourced, to be able to respond quickly and appropriately to what is put before it.

[Peter Grant]

Q Good afternoon, Mr Petrie. There will be some entities that try to take over British businesses where the warning flags are flown immediately, because it is well known that either it is a foreign state, or a company controlled by a foreign state. Often, it is difficult or even impossible to know who the ultimate controlling party of a business is if they have arranged to have their ultimate ownership registered somewhere offshore, where that information is not made public. Does the Bill, as presently worded, provide enough protection against a hostile power trying to infiltrate the system by going through a secretive intermediary state? If it does not, what more should be done in the Bill to protect us against that scenario?

David Petrie: This is an issue that is well recognised by the investment and advisory community. I think that, as you say so rightly in your question, the warning flags, flares or whatever they might be will already be going off if this is a particularly sensitive military asset that is being considered for acquisition. I think that the unit will be able to look first at the nature of the asset, and it will be apparent very quickly as to whether this is a very sensitive issue. If the acquirer is not a British public limited company, a British private company or one invested in by private equity, if the ultimate ownership is structured in a way that is not conventional—many companies are held through offshore companies for entirely conventional, obvious and transparent reasons for the investment community—and if there is something strange about that ownership structure that makes it extremely difficult to trace the ultimate ownership, it feels to me as though that would be one of the 70 to 90 cases that the Secretary of State would want to review in a lot more detail. Then, due and diligent inquiries would be made to try and understand the ultimate ownership of those holding companies. There would be lots of complicated diagrams drawn, no doubt, showing who owns which bit of what and who are the key individuals and shareholders. The answer would be that, I am afraid, this unit is going to have to keep digging until they get to the bottom of who are the ultimate shareholders.

The Bill is drafted in such a way that you do not need to own much in the way of shares—or there are provisions included within it such that if an entity or individuals, or individuals reporting elsewhere, have control or influence over those holding companies, that in itself would be something we would be concerned about. The Bill includes provision for that because we know, and I believe the security services are well aware, that the equivalent of layering is used for acquisition of these sorts of businesses, or people have certainly tried to do that. So, it is going to be a matter of hard work and digging to get to the bottom of who really owns and controls those entities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

Q Thank you. Decisions under this legislation will initially be taken by the Secretary of State. In the United Kingdom, the way that Ministers exercise the authority given to them by legislation, and indeed the way that Governments or Prime Ministers exercise the authority that comes down through the concept of the royal prerogative, is governed as much by tradition, convention and understanding as it is by hard legislation. Recently, we have seen an increasing number of occasions when Governments have chosen to do things that are allowed but are completely unprecedented and not according to the usual traditions and conventions. There are some notable examples here, and clearly a number of examples from the outgoing President of the United States. Does that give you a concern that legislation might be passed giving a Minister power under certain understandings, but that the understandings themselves might have no legal force, so a future Minister might exercise that power in a way that is very different from what had been expected or intended when the legislation was passed?

Chris Cummings: Forgive me, but it is obviously not my role to advise future Ministers on attitudes they may take. I can simply say, from an investor’s point of view, that we prize stability, predictability and accountability beyond all things. Making sure that the rule of law applies and that there is no handbrake turn in policy direction matters hugely. Investment is being sought by every economy around the world, and it would be a very rash Minister indeed who decided to unpick something that is a great strength of the UK and one of our global competitive advantages: a system based on the rule of law and an approach to policy making that is entirely transparent and accountable to Parliament, which gives the investment community great confidence that the UK retains its position as being one of the safest places in the world to invest in.

From our perspective, that accounts for one of the reasons why our investment management industry here in the UK is globally pre-eminent. The UK is not only the largest investment centre in Europe; we are bigger than the next two or three added together. Only the US is a bigger market, and that is because of its substantial domestic scale. When it comes to international investment, the UK is streets ahead of its competitors. We would very strongly urge any parliamentarian, and certainly any Minister, to think twice before taking actions that would have a lasting consequence for our international reputation.

[Simon Baynes]

Q Thank you, Mr Cummings, for a very good presentation. I just want to go back to your point about the blanket exclusion for investment managers. First, you say that is the situation in Japan, but maybe you could say where else it exists. Secondly, why is it needed? I totally accept that, on the whole, the investments being made by your members will not fall within the trigger points, because they will not be taking over 25% of Shell or even some small companies, but they might do in certain circumstances.

Thirdly, to what extent do hedge funds represent members within your organisation? Obviously, they have greater capacity, or greater natural affinity, for investing in smaller companies—not always, but in certain cases. They might actually fall within the remit of the triggers, so I do not quite see how we could implement the blanket exclusion, if from time to time there are exceptions to the exclusion.

Chris Cummings: Thank you for asking me to clarify; I apologise that I was not as clear as I should have been. The hedge fund community has a representative organisation. It is a splendid one that can do a tremendous job in speaking for them, and I would not put myself in that position; I would not try to speak for them. We have members that invest substantially through private markets into smaller and unlisted companies. Again, it comes down to intention. The intention is not to invest in such a way as to take over the company and to seize the reins; the intention is to make an investment that is in the strategic direction of the company, to support its growth.

I am trying not the use the term “passive investment”, because we are anything other than passive when it comes to investing, but it is an approach that is designed to support the company, rather than to change dramatically the company’s ownership or direction, or to land one of our members on its board—in effect, they would then be part of the management and governance of that company. I hope it is more than a subtle definition; it is a distinction with a real difference. That is part of why we think it is an important distinction to make.

Other jurisdictions have been through similar experiences. The Japanese example is so relevant, because it is only a year or so ago that the Japanese Government were considering very similar legislation. As a result of consultation, they came up with the approach that we are suggesting: to exclude the activities of investors, insurance companies and so on, because it is around the intentionality—not wanting to take an active role in the management or to change the company’s direction, but to support through investment rather than to seek control.

The US has a similar modus operandi. It is not quite as framed in the legislation as it is in Japan—again, just through history. The approaches that we have seen in Germany and France also nudge in the direction that I am describing, so there are parallels. The Japanese experience is the closest match that I can offer the Committee, but we will continue to do further investigations and to feed in ideas through the Bill’s stages and through the consultation on individual sectors.

[Simon Baynes]

Q There is a fairly fine line in smaller companies in which an investment manager takes a major stake. There is a fairly fine line between having an active role in its management and having very close scrutiny of its management. From my own experience in the business, the investment manager keeps a very close eye on it in those cases. If they do not, quite a lot of risk is involved. That is quite a crucial grey area, and it therefore makes me think that a blanket exclusion would create problems. It might be viewed by private equity companies or whatever as being an unfair advantage to investment managers.

Chris Cummings: Certainly, we are keen to see those smaller and medium-sized companies get access to as much growth capital and investment as they need. Part of our enthusiasm for this piece of legislation, and indeed others, is that it is an opportunity to re-excite the UK public about the opportunities for equity—for shareholder participation in fast-growing companies. That is partly why we are so keen to work with your Committee and others to communicate the message.

Perhaps a clearer distinction could be found for the difference between listed and unlisted companies. That is perhaps where we could focus our attention more, on explaining—I am not sure that “blanket exception” is quite the right language for me to use because that seems to be a one-and-done exercise and perhaps there would be more to it than that—but focusing the attention on the listed sector, where it is much more obvious that we as investment managers are investing for the long term rather than seeking control over the company. I hope that would allay some of the concerns that you rightly mention.

[Matt Western]

Q Thank you, Mr Cummings, for being a witness today. I want to come back to the point about capacity in terms of the mandatory notifications. As described, do you think it is going to be able to cope with that, and just how opaque are some business organisations and ownership? With that opacity, will they realistically get to that within 30 days? That is my first question. Secondly, in terms of many transactions, the Government have no legal powers over retaining jobs or research and development in the UK—thinking about SoftBank, Arm and many others. Do you think there is a need to plug those sorts of gaps or deficiencies?

Chris Cummings: You rightly raise the question of scale and resources. It is one of the things we have been consulting our members on, and having discussions with others, to try and get a better view of what the notification process would be, who would notify, who would then respond, the scale of the team in the Department that would be exercising due diligence in the applications and whether the system could cope. Bluntly, what would concern us deeply is having a 30-day notice or turnaround period that the Department regularly missed, because that would then create a shadow over this particular piece of legislation. It would gum up the works and, frankly, none of us would wish to see that.

Looking at how the regime works at the moment, with very few notifications, there seems to be a scale difference between where we are today and what the legislation proposes. We would like to hear more from Ministers on how they are going to address that and what the processes would be. There have been discussions about a portal, a very brief form of five pages or so that would be easy to complete, but I think a degree more of reassurance on that point would not go amiss—as would the confidentiality. There is so much around any investment process and the acquisition process that has to remain entirely confidential, that investors would require and would be looking for reassurance that these conversations could be held in the strictest of confidence and that nothing would appear until the right time. In terms of scale and resources, it is a point that we share your interest in.

I was making a note of the point you raised on transactions, but could you repeat that part of the question? Apologies.