Nov. 4, 2016
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to ease foreign takeover rules signals Canada is opening its doors to more foreign direct investment, according to an article in Bloomberg. In his article, Josh Wingrove examines Canada’s plan to increase the threshold for automatic government review of acquisitions from $600 million to $1 billion in enterprise value in 2017 — two years earlier than initially expected. This, according to the article, stands in contrast to global trends of protectionism, which have helped spark Donald Trump’s political ascension. Peter Glossop, a partner in Osler’s Competition/Antitrust and Foreign Investment Group, explains what this loosening of restrictions means for Canada.
The investment changes are “really to indicate that Canada is open to business and we’re kind of jump-starting things by encouraging people to come in here without the burden of having to get an approval like that,” Peter tells Bloomberg.
The article goes on to describe how these changes would affect various companies and touches on the government’s pending guidelines on national security reviews of acquisitions.
Read the full article “Trumpism doesn’t play in Canada, which just eased takeover rules” in Bloomberg.