Investment screening: Implications for the energy sector and energy security

The global flows of foreign investment are increasingly curtailed by tightening investment screening policies. Several states, including Australia, Germany, Japan and the United States, have recently updated their investment screening legislation to cover new industries, transactions and buyers in order to protect sectors deemed sensitive to national or public security. In this article, we analyze the implications of the evolving investment screening landscape for the energy sector. Based on the comparative appraisal of regulatory and administrative developments primarily in the United States and the European Union, we identify the most significant policy changes and their likely outcomes for the energy sector. By analyzing law, policy and individual screening decisions, we demonstrate how investment screening increasingly encroaches on new segments of the energy value chain and poses new challenges for international energy investments. Most importantly, the changing investment screening practices are likely to affect cross-border transactions in energy infrastructures, energy technologies and data-intensive technologies, including the digitalization of the energy sector and concerns over the protection of personal data. We further suggest that the new types of security issues addressed in investment screening legislation and policy push the boundaries of the traditional notions of energy security.