Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023: First Annual Report Released

The Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke, has published the first Annual Report under the Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023 (Screening Act). The Screening Act gave effect to EU Regulation 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council, came into force on 6 January 2025 and introduced an inward investment screening regime for in scope investments made by investors from a “third country”, being a country that is not a member of the European Union, the European Economic Area or Switzerland. The Screening Act requires transactions that meet certain conditions to be notified and cleared by the Minister.

The regime applies to  transactions relating to, or impacting upon, one or more of the following sectors:

(a) Critical infrastructure, whether physical or virtual, including energy, transport, water, health, communications, media, data processing or storage, aerospace, defence, electoral or financial infrastructure, and sensitive facilities, as well as land and real estate crucial for the use of such infrastructure;
(b) Critical technologies and dual use items as including artificial intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, cybersecurity, aerospace, defence, energy storage, quantum and nuclear technologies as well as nanotechnologies and biotechnologies;
(c) Supply of critical inputs, including energy or raw materials, as well as food security;
(d) Access to sensitive information, including personal data, or the ability to control such information; or
(e) The freedom and pluralism of the media.  

The Annual Report provides an overview of the operation of the Act in 2025. A total of 102 notifications were received by the Minister.  As expected, the highest number of notifications involved investors from the US and the UK. Out of the notifications formally screened, the majority of these involved target entities active in the Critical Infrastructure sector.

The report highlights that the average time taken to complete an initial assessment was 9.76 days and that an average of 40.5 days was taken to provide a screening decision where a transaction was formally screened.

The Minister also published an updated version of the Inward Investment Screening Guidance for Stakeholders and Investors, providing an overview of the legislation and its application.

For more information, please contact Marco Hickey SC at mhickey@byrnewallaceshields.com and DDI +353 (01) 6371522 or Michael Cunningham at mcunningham@byrnewallaceshields.com and DDI +353 1 6385827 of our Competition, Antitrust and Foreign Investment Regulation team.