Treasury Proposes Sweeping Expansion of Outbound Investment Rules
US Treasury's proposed COINS Act rules would broaden prohibited outbound investment in semiconductors and super intelligence systems and add new biotechnology prohibitions, widening pre-deal screening exposure for major-firm clients.
Treasury has proposed a sweeping expansion of the outbound investment rules administered under the COINS Act, extending prohibitions to a broader set of investments in semiconductors and "super intelligence" (SI) systems and adding new prohibitions on biotechnology investments. The proposal builds on Treasury's existing outbound investment framework, which already requires analysis of certain transactions involving semiconductors, quantum information, and AI in light of covered national-security technologies and foreign-person-of-concern considerations.
Why sophisticated counsel should care: outbound investment screening has become a standing diligence and structuring item for private equity sponsors, corporate development teams, and institutional investors. A wider set of covered technologies plus a new biotechnology prohibition would expand the universe of deals requiring national-security review, affecting valuation, JV and co-investment structures, syndication decisions, and whether a transaction can proceed without a mitigation protocol or CFIUS-adjacent workaround.
What to watch: the comment period and the final text, including covered-technology definitions, the scope of the SI and biotech prohibitions, and any changes to country and person lists. Clients with live or pipeline transactions should re-map deal exposure against the proposed scope now rather than at finalization. Note that the available material is a single firm alert; comment deadlines, list content, and precise technical definitions were not confirmed and should be verified against the Federal Register notice.