State-owned enterprises, international investment and national security: The way forward

By Frédéric Wehrlé and Hans Christiansen, OECD Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs

For most of the past half century, countries around the world have gradually opened up to foreign investment, and with good effect. Investment from other countries has supported growth and development, created jobs and enhanced welfare. Today, as our data show, OECD economies retain only limited traditional regulatory restrictions to inward foreign investment in the form of foreign ownership ceilings and other discriminatory conditions. While many emerging economies are generally less open, they have made their legal regimes for foreign direct investment less restrictive. Ongoing monitoring by the OECD shows that these liberalisation efforts continued after the 2008 financial crisis.

However, since the 2000s, a new and opposing trend has emerged: the screening and review of foreign investment projects, particularly those by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), to mitigate risks to national security. In fact, a recent survey shows that more and more governments are introducing or enhancing screening mechanisms for inbound investment projects to identify and address perceived threats. A third of the 59 advanced and emerging economies that participate in our investment policy dialogue now operate such mechanisms. Several governments are now subjecting investment proposals involving SOEs to greater scrutiny, and at times prohibiting these investments. Some countries have established special rules for the review and admission of investments by SOEs or are considering new policies to address the issue.

Could the precedent offered by the Santiago Principles help to point a way forward? In 2008, following widely publicised concerns in some large OECD countries regarding high profile investment projects by non-OECD sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), the community of SWFs and their government owners adopted a code of good conduct, the Santiago Principles, that was motivated by a desire to ensure that countries would not use national security arguments as a cover for protectionism against foreign SWFs. A decade later, the upsurge of SOEs in global investment and related national security concerns expressed by recipient countries could motivate similar arrangements with respect to investment by foreign SOEs.

International investment by SOEs is a growing concern

The increasing participation of SOEs in the global marketplace, particularly as international investors, makes it all the more important to balance concerns about the good governance of SOEs and to maintain a level playing field. As bearers of state as well as commercial interests, SOEs may place their emphasis on strategic acquisitions, such as advanced technologies for example, on non-market terms. It is fitting therefore that the rise of SOEs should revive interest in investment policies related to national security.

Australia, for instance, screens all SOE investments, whereas it screens private investments only when they exceed a value threshold. Canada applies different trigger thresholds for the application of its net-benefit test if the investor is state-owned. The United States has established specific rules regarding SOEs as part of its national security review mechanism (CFIUS), which require investigation of all government-controlled investments concerning US businesses. Germany has just strengthened its review mechanism. France, Germany and Italy have called for EU policies to address the issue. Strengthening screening of foreign direct investment (FDI) on national security grounds is also under consideration in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Heightened awareness of the implications of SOE investment has also been evident in more recent international investment agreements. The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP), for example, dedicates an entire chapter to SOE investments, whereas in older agreements SOEs were effectively afforded a status broadly similar to that of private investors.

Governments have always been careful to secure policy space to safeguard national security needs. The OECD Codes of Liberalisation, for instance, just as many investment treaties, contain corresponding national security exceptions. These exceptions are typically self-judging, and the term “national security” is intentionally broad.

Because of the discretionary nature of invoking national security as a ground for restricting foreign investment, the OECD Guidelines for Recipient Country Investment Policies relating to National Security were issued as an OECD Recommendation in 2009. These guidelines offer a set of specific recommendations providing for non-discrimination, transparency and predictability, as well as regulatory proportionality and accountability, including effective safeguards against undue influence and conflict of interest.

Internationally agreed rules on SOEs would bring benefits

While concerns relating to SOE investments are legitimate–and many SOEs are less transparent than private firms–the imposition of outright or unqualified restrictions on SOE investments in recipient countries benefit neither host nor home countries as opportunities for mutually beneficial international investment are forgone.

Applying internationally agreed commitments to SOEs and their government owners would help reassure recipient country regulators by offering greater transparency, addressing potential distortions that may arise from state ownership, and ensuring that the SOE owners also observe high standards of governance, disclosure and accountability. In turn, these regulators could be expected to apply the same conditions to SOEs that they apply to investment proposals by privately-owned companies.

A similar outcome to that agreed by SWFs can be achieved for SOE investments today. After all, recommendations on good practices for governance, disclosure accountability and transparency of SOEs have already been agreed under the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. These guidelines include specific provisions by which the legal and regulatory framework for SOEs, as well as their practices, should ensure a level playing field and fair competition in the marketplace when SOEs engage in economic activities. If translated to an international market context, and if fully implemented, these provisions could fully address the concerns of investment regulators. The last element required to emulate the “Santiago arrangement” would be to secure a commitment by SOEs to abide by these standards.

This could help convince recipient countries to keep their economies open and to uphold both the letter and the spirit of the principles of OECD guidance on national security.

The OECD stands ready to help forge a mutually beneficial and trusted arrangement for SOEs so that home and host societies can reap the benefits of international investment, while addressing important security concerns that inhibit certain investments proposed by SOEs today.

References and further reading

International Forum of Sovereign Wealth Funds (2008), the Santiago Principles

OECD (2016), State-Owned Enterprises as Global Competitors: A Challenge or an Opportunity?

OECD, OECD Codes of Liberalisation of Capital Movements and of Current Invisible Operations, 2012–2017

OECD, Corporate governance of SOEs: Guidance and research, 2011–2017

OECD, Monitoring investment and trade measures, 2008–2017

OECD, Freedom of investment at the OECD, 2007–2017

OECD (2015), OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises

OECD (2009), OECD Guidelines for Recipient Country Investment Policies Relating to National Security, Recommendation adopted by the OECD Council on 25 May 2009

OECD, FDI Regulatory Restrictiveness Index, 1997–2017

Shima, Y. (2015), The Policy Landscape for International Investment by Government-controlled Investors: A Fact Finding Survey, OECD Working Papers on International Investment, №2015/01, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Wehrlé, F. and J. Pohl (2016), Investment Policies Related to National Security: A Survey of Country Practices, OECD Working Papers on International Investment, №2016/02, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Originally posted on the OECD Insights Blog