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U.S. National Security Issues in Cross-Border Food, Beverage & Agribusiness Deals

November 4, 2021

by Justin T. Huff, Lawrence Ward, Dave Townsend, and T. Augustine Lo

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On October 28, 2021, a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduced the Food Security is National Security Act of 2021 (the “Act”). Among other things, the Act would require the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) to consider the “potential effects of [certain foreign investment transactions] on the security of the food and agriculture systems of the United States, including any effects on the availability of, access to, or safety and quality of food.” In other words, certain foreign investment in the U.S. agricultural industry would be treated similarly to foreign investment in U.S. companies that hold critical technology or that collect and maintain sensitive personal data. Additionally, the Act would expand CFIUS from its current nine members to 11 members by adding the Secretaries from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”).

Despite the apparent bipartisan support for the Act, it is far too early to know if Congress will enact this new legislation into law. Moreover, CFIUS regularly reviews foreign investments and acquisitions in the food, beverage, and agribusiness sector (“FB&A sector”) even without such legislation. As detailed below, CFIUS already has the legal authority and established procedures for any concerned federal agencies to weigh-in on proposed foreign investments or acquisitions in the FB&A sector. In short, U.S. companies operating in the FB&A sector will likely not face a sea-change in CFIUS jurisdiction or practice even if Congress passes the Act or a similar proposal to ramp up CFIUS reviews on the basis of food safety or food security concerns.

Background.

Generally speaking, the term “food safety” refers to the principles to establish production,  processing, and distribution environments that prevent contamination and food-borne illnesses in the U.S. food supply, and the term “food security” means the availability of sufficient food and the ability of U.S. households to access that food. As so defined, food safety and food security have been mainstays of U.S. agriculture policy for decades. Congress has long recognized the importance of these two concepts and has regularly provided and frequently updated authorities for both the USDA and the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) within HHS to ensure that these twin policy goals are met. In the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has had severe and dramatic effects on the health of essential workers in the nation’s food production, processing, and distribution systems, and that has only heightened public concerns about food safety and food security across the United States.

The President of the United States is authorized to investigate, and to suspend or to prohibit, certain transactions involving investment in or acquisitions of a U.S. business by a foreign person when he determines that such transaction threatens to impair U.S. national security and no other adequate and appropriate means are available to address that threat. CFIUS is an interagency committee chaired by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to which the President has delegated his powers of such national security reviews. The only way to “cut off” this enormous Presidential power is to make a filing with CFIUS and then to receive a CFIUS “clearance” of the transaction.

Historically, filings with CFIUS were entirely voluntary. However, Congress passed the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (“FIRRMA”) to expand CFIUS jurisdiction and to make certain kinds of transactions subject to mandatory reviews by CFIUS. Thus, since 2018, CFIUS has mandated filings in certain transactions involving critical technology, critical infrastructure, or sensitive personal data, including transactions that would not necessarily involve a change of control of such a U.S. business. Companies that fail to submit a required CFIUS filing  for such a transaction risk penalties up to the value of the entire transaction. Whether a transaction comes to CFIUS on a voluntary or mandatory basis, when examining transactions within its jurisdiction, CFIUS customarily analyzes both the national or homeland security vulnerability posed by the U.S. business and the nature and extent of the threat posed by the foreign investor or acquirer.

The Act and Current CFIUS Practice.

The Act would formally add the Secretaries of USDA and HHS as full and regular members of CFIUS. Additionally, the Act would require CFIUS to consider the “security of the food and agriculture systems of the United States as a factor…when determining to take action with respect to foreign investment.” The full text of the Act can be found here.

Congress has considered similar proposals in the past that ultimately failed to become law. It is still too early to tell whether the Act will be successful or will meet a similar fate to those earlier legislative efforts. Nevertheless, U.S. companies operating within the FB&A sector who may be seeking foreign investors or acquirers should understand that CFIUS has had a considerable history of reviewing foreign investments or acquisitions in the FB&A sector and, even without either the USDA or HHS Secretary being CFIUS members, CFIUS can and does regularly seek and receive input from USDA and FDA as appropriate in reviewing foreign transactions within the FB&A sector.

Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), whose Secretary is a CFIUS member, has long considered the FB&A sector as one of its 16 critical infrastructure sectors “whose assets, systems, and networks, whether physical or virtual, are considered so vital to the United States that their incapacitation or destruction would have a debilitating effect on security, national economic security, national public health or safety, or any combination thereof.” In fact, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (“CISA”) within DHS, in conjunction with USDA and FDA, published a detailed sector-specific plan to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure within the FB&A sector. That FB&A sector-specific plan can be found here.

CFIUS routinely requests assistance from other federal departments and agencies that are not full-members of CFIUS whenever appropriate. Such non-member departments and agencies provide needed expertise and experience to CFIUS and can thus play a crucial role when determining whether a specific foreign investment or acquisition threatens to impair U.S. national security. CFIUS also regularly considers if a regulatory agency’s existing authorities are sufficient to cope with any security risks associated with a given transaction subject to CFIUS review because that is a core mandate of the original CFIUS legislation. The Congressional intent was always for CFIUS to step in and act only when no other existing legal means are available and practical to deal with the identified security risk. For example, in transactions within the FB&A sector, CFIUS regularly consults with USDA and FDA and considers whether these agencies’ existing laws and enforcement powers are sufficient to adequately protect food safety or food security outside the CFIUS review process.

Historically, CFIUS has operated by consensus when evaluating each transaction within its jurisdiction. Each member department “approves” a transaction that is notified to CFIUS, usually through the vote of either an Assistant Secretary or Deputy Secretary from that department acting on behalf of that Department’s Secretary who is a formal member of CFIUS. Ultimately, if the Act were to add the USDA and HHS Secretaries as new CFIUS members, that could further complicate the CFIUS review and clearance process and would place additional responsibilities on USDA and HHS and FDA leadership, especially in transactions where there would be no clear nexus to those agencies’ core responsibilities or expertise. For that reason, even if the Act were to become law, CFIUS could consider revising its internal procedures to require participation by USDA and FDA only when appropriate for deals touching upon food safety or food supply issues, rather than requiring them to take part in every case under CFIUS review.

National Security Concerns within the FB&A Sector.

Within the last ten years, focus on CFIUS within the FB&A sector has changed dramatically. A decade ago, U.S. FB&A companies and their foreign investors or acquirers generally only considered voluntarily filing with CFIUS if the U.S. business had contracts with the U.S. Government or one of its agencies (e.g., providing food supply to a U.S. military base) or had property proximate to a U.S. Defense or Energy Department facility. In multiple states, FB&A companies own or lease property that is proximate to sensitive U.S. Defense Department facilities, and CFIUS has long been concerned about such proximity issues and their impact on U.S. national security.

However, much has changed since 2010. Today U.S. companies from across all industries, including the FB&A sector, regularly assess whether to make CFIUS approval a condition of closing when seeking foreign investments or are undergoing a foreign acquisition. For example, in addition to adding mandatory filings to CFIUS in certain transaction, the 2018 FIRRMA amendments also authorized CFIUS to review certain U.S. real estate transactions for the first time. Because of the FIRRMA changes that added real estate transactions to CFIUS’s jurisdiction, even if an FB&A company does not own or lease any property that is proximate to a U.S. Defense facility but does own or lease other U.S. real property that might be near another kind of key installation such as a dam, bridge, airport or seaport, a foreign investment in or acquisition of that company might now fall within CFIUS’s jurisdiction.

Increasingly, U.S. FB&A companies may also be technology companies. Some of the technologies relied upon or developed by FB&A companies are, or may become, “critical technologies” controlled for U.S. export purposes. For example, U.S. FB&A companies’ use of unmanned aerial vehicles and certain robotics continues to grow. The U.S. Department of Commerce has also been exploring whether to control various emerging technologies under its Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”). Many of the emerging technologies that the Commerce Department is considering controlling – such as biotechnology; artificial intelligence/machine learning; position, navigation, and timing (“PNT”) technology; logistics technology; and robotics – are also technologies that are increasingly relied upon within the FB&A sector. CFIUS will thus continue to be keenly interested in foreign investments in or acquisitions of FB&A companies that work with such new technologies. As the FB&A sector continues to adopt such technologies to increase productivity, CFIUS will likely become more concerned about foreign investment in or acquisitions within the sector, particularly if the foreign persons are from countries that CFIUS views as U.S. adversaries.

Within the last five years, CFIUS’s interest in protection of sensitive personal data and the impact of cyber-attacks on U.S. businesses has also increased dramatically. For example, the proposed foreign acquisition of StayNTouch (a hotel management platform company) ultimately had to be dropped because of CFIUS concerns related to data and potential cyber-attacks. The evolving business models of some FB&A companies now require them to collect significant volumes of sensitive personal data, bringing such data-driven FB&A companies within these CFIUS data privacy and security concerns. Furthermore, CFIUS could easily see the crippling effects of the spring 2021 cyber-attack on JBS, the world’s largest meat processing company (measured by sales), which caused the temporary shutdown of JBS facilities that supplied roughly one-quarter of the total meat supply to American consumers. That attack again highlighted particular vulnerabilities of FB&A companies in terms of the nation’s food safety and food security.

Through FIRRMA, Congress also placed greater emphasis on CFIUS reviewing transactions post-closing (that is, transactions that were not voluntarily notified to CFIUS before closing).  As a result, in overseeing the work of CFIUS, the U.S. Department of the Treasury established a new unit, the Office of Investment Security Monitoring & Enforcement (“Monitoring & Enforcement”).  Monitoring & Enforcement watches for non-notified transactions (e.g., by media coverage of large business transactions) and regularly requests information about closed investments or acquisitions across all business sectors. Inquiries from CFIUS post-closing used to be rare, but now they happen regularly because this specific government unit was stood up to make such requests so that CFIUS would be better able to review any such foreign transaction within its expanded jurisdiction, months or even years after such a transaction has closed. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become painfully clear the impact that FB&A companies can have on the nation’s food supply and safety. Going forward, Monitoring & Enforcement will undoubtedly ensure that CFIUS will continue to be involved in foreign company investment in or acquisition transactions with U.S. companies in the FB&A sector, closed or otherwise.

Going Forward.

Regardless of whether the Act becomes law, leading members of Congress will likely continue to press CFIUS to consider food safety and food security issues in cross-border deals in the FB&A sector, and CFIUS will certainly continue to do so. Accordingly, both foreign and U.S. FB&A companies involved in such cross-border investments or acquisitions should consider the impact CFIUS may have on a proposed transaction and assess whether a mandatory filing is required or a voluntary filing is advisable and the impact of the whole CFIUS process on the closing timetable of such transactions.

If a CFIUS filing is mandatory, then the parties to such a transaction must file either a “declaration” or a “notice” with CFIUS at least 30 days before closing (and they may need to delay their closing if informed by CFIUS that it needs more time to review and clear that transaction). If a filing is only voluntary but the parties choose nonetheless to condition their closing upon a CFIUS clearance, that process could take anywhere from 60 to 120 days or more. Failure to consider such CFIUS issues early in the transaction process may result in unexpected delays and significant disruption to the parties and their business plans.

 

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Two groups must continue to file as before: all twelve ANCSA Regional Corporations, each of which enrolled more than 500 shareholders at creation, and all Village Corporations that originally enrolled 500 or more shareholders. As reported by the Alaska Beacon, when the bill was under consideration, the Division identified 59 corporations then filing, expected at least seven village corporations to become exempt, and was reviewing roughly 30 more. 2. Practical Analysis HB 126 reduces a real compliance burden for smaller Village Corporations, which now need not spend time and money on State filings. In coming years, the exempt Village Corporations may experience benefits associated with less public disclosure and less regulation. But at the same time, less public disclosure carries trade-offs. Benchmarking will become harder Publicly-filed proxy statements and annual reports have long served as a reference set. 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Sec. 1625(c), which requires a Native Corporation that would otherwise be subject to the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to prepare and transmit to its shareholders an annual report containing substantially the information a company subject to that Act would include. Similarly, ANCs that solicit proxies for an annual meeting are still required to furnish shareholders with those proxy materials under general Alaska corporate law. However, ANCs are now no longer required to transmit proxy statements to the State. ANCs’ reporting obligations to their shareholders are unaffected by HB 126. Any corporation newly exempt from state filing still owes its shareholders a detailed annual report and a proxy statement, even though that report is no longer routed through the State and made public. Reinstatement of dissolved Village Corporations Separately, HB 126 amends AS 10.06.960(k) to remove the prior deadline (previously December 31, 2020) for reinstating an involuntarily dissolved Native Village Corporation. A dissolved Village Corporation may now apply to be reinstated under AS 10.06.633(e) at any time. Reinstatement still runs through the commissioner under AS 10.06.633(e). In general, that means the ANC must apply, cure the neglect or delinquency that led to dissolution, and pay the amounts owed, and the corporation’s name must be available or be changed to one that is. Once reinstated, the corporation and its shareholders are restored to the rights, privileges, liabilities, and obligations they would have had as if the dissolution had never occurred, and corporate and shareholder actions taken during the dissolution are treated as valid. If the previously-used corporate name is no longer available, the board alone may amend the articles to adopt a new name (without the necessity for shareholder approval). 3. Frequently Asked Questions What does HB 126 do? It changes how Alaska measures the 500-shareholder test that decides which ANCs must file proxy and annual report materials with the state. It removes the asset test, and it counts shareholders based on original enrollment rather than the current rolls. It also removes the deadline for reinstating an involuntarily dissolved Native Village Corporation. Which ANCs are affected? Village Corporations that originally enrolled fewer than 500 shareholders, because they may no longer need to file with the Division. Regional Corporations and Village Corporations that originally enrolled 500 or more shareholders must continue to file as before. Does HB 126 eliminate all reporting obligations? No. It changes the state filing requirement under AS 45.55.139, but it does not remove the separate ANCSA obligation (43 U.S.C. Sec. 1625(c)) to provide shareholders with an annual report, and general corporate law still calls for a proxy statement when the ANC solicits proxies. Corporations that remain subject to state filing requirements must also continue to comply with the Division's rules. We think we are now exempt. What should our ANC board and management consider? Confirm your ANC’s original enrollment number and whether your corporation falls below the new threshold. Watch for communications from the State on this topic as they proceed with their research. If your ANC is now exempt, decide how your corporation will meet its continuing ANCSA obligation to shareholders, review proxy and annual meeting materials and timelines, and consider what to communicate to shareholders about any change in how they will receive information. It is worth documenting the basis for any exemption. What should ANC shareholders watch for? Shareholders should watch for how and when they will continue to receive annual report and proxy statement information directly from their ANC, since some material that used to be available through the State’s online website will no longer be publicly filed. If something is unclear, shareholders can ask their ANC how it intends to meet its ANCSA reporting obligations. How Dorsey Can Help HB 126 lightens the State filing load for smaller Village Corporations, but it also raises practical questions: confirming who is exempt, meeting continuing ANCSA obligations to shareholders, keeping proxy and annual meeting processes on track, and maintaining benchmarking when public materials become less available. These are exactly the kinds of judgment calls that benefit from early planning. Dorsey’s attorneys work closely with Alaska Native Corporations and related stakeholders. 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In the 1990s and early 2000s I served as general counsel of SunCor Development Company, one of Arizona's most active master-planned community developers, where we used Community Facilities Districts to finance hundreds of millions of dollars of major infrastructure across Arizona in cities such as Goodyear, Phoenix, Tempe, Litchfield Park, and Prescott Valley. For its time the CFD was an effective structure, and a great deal of what is now on the ground in those communities was financed with this tool. Unfortunately, CFDs have over time become considerably harder to use. Successive legislative amendments have layered on tax-rate ceilings, homebuyer disclosure obligations, and added procedural steps. Another drag on the use of CFDs is that formation of them runs through the municipality, where approval can turn as much on local politics as on the merits of a project. Developers now routinely are asked to absorb delay and uncertainty that a project's economics cannot support, which is a large part of why Arizona has fallen behind Colorado, Texas, and Utah in getting infrastructure financed. A better tool was needed, and Chapter 40 is it. How a SAID Improves on a CFD A State Affordability Infrastructure District (SAID) keeps what worked about the CFD: tax-exempt, property-secured, non-recourse infrastructure financing — while shedding much of what made the CFD cumbersome. Its principal advantages over a traditional CFD: Administrative formation. A SAID is formed by the Arizona Finance Authority against fixed statutory criteria, through a yes-or-no compliance review on a sixty-day clock, rather than through the discretionary approval of a city council or a board of supervisors. Insulation from municipal politics. Because formation is a state-level compliance determination, a meritorious project is far less exposed to local political headwinds than it is under the CFD process. Landowner control of the board. A SAID is governed by a board of the landowners — appointed at formation, then elected on an acreage basis. In a typical municipal CFD, the city council sits as the district board; here, the developer controls governance. Advance funding of impact fees. A SAID can use bond proceeds to advance-pay municipal development impact fees, unlike CFDs, removing one of the largest upfront cash burdens in a project. A uniform, statewide process. The criteria are the same regardless of jurisdiction, replacing the municipality-by-municipality variation that has made CFD outcomes hard to predict. Flexible boundaries. A district may include noncontiguous parcels in the same county within five miles of one another, which fits phased and multi-tract development. Capped cost and a fixed timeline. Authority fees to form a district are capped at $15,000, and a complete petition must be acted on within sixty days. The full range of bonds. A SAID may issue general obligation, special assessment, revenue, and refunding bonds, secured solely by district property and creating no obligation for any other taxpayer. What is a SAID A SAID is a special taxing district that the owners of a development form to finance public infrastructure with tax-exempt bonds: general obligation bonds, special assessment bonds, and revenue bonds. The bonds are secured only by the property inside the district and are repaid over the long term, with terms up to 30 years. They do not affect the credit of the city, the county, or the State, and they create no obligation for any taxpayer outside the district. In practical terms, a SAID lets you finance horizontal infrastructure over the life of the asset instead of writing the check at the front end. The maximum ad valorem rate securing general obligation bonds is capped by statute at $5.00 per $100 of net assessed limited property valuation, with a limited step-up to cover a debt-service shortfall. SAIDs Work for Commercial as Well as Residential Development The SAID bill drew most of its press as a housing-affordability measure, and it appears to be a strong one. It is the first Arizona district statute to let bond proceeds advance-fund municipal development impact fees, which pulls one of the largest upfront cash burdens off a homebuilder's pro forma. But the statute's eligible infrastructure categories apply with equal force to commercial, industrial, and mixed-use projects. An industrial or logistics project can finance roads, rail crossings, sidings, and grade separations. A life-sciences or technology campus can finance its water, sewer, roads, and broadband the same way a subdivision can. Read Chapter 40 as a general-purpose infrastructure finance platform, not a subdivision-only device. How Formation Works A SAID is formed administratively by the Arizona Finance Authority. The Authority reviews the petition for compliance with the statute; it is a yes-or-no review against fixed criteria, not a discretionary negotiation with a city council or a board of supervisors, and it runs on a sixty-day clock once a complete petition is filed. Formation requires the written consent of 100% of the landowners in the proposed district and an engineer's certification that public infrastructure costs will exceed $5 million. The district may include noncontiguous parcels so long as they lie in the same county and within five miles of the district's other property, which accommodates phased and multi-tract development; if any part of the district sits inside a municipality, the whole district must stay within that municipality's limits or planning area. The Authority's fees to form a district are capped at $15,000. Issuing bonds requires a district election. Governance Simplified A SAID is run by a three-member board. The initial directors are named in the petition; after that, directors are elected by the landowners on an acreage basis as ownership diversifies. Board service runs with ownership; a director must either hold fee title inside the district or be an individual designated by a fee-title owner; and corporations, partnerships, and other entities may hold that ownership, vote as owners, and designate the individual who serves. A district has no power of eminent domain and no zoning authority, and directors may not be officials or employees of the municipality in which the district sits. What a SAID Does Not Do It finances; it does not entitle. Zoning, platting, rezonings, use permits, and the specialized approvals a manufacturing or life-sciences facility may need all remain with the local jurisdiction and proceed on their own track. The financing and entitlement timelines should be coordinated with formation of the SAID, but they are separate processes. Two substantive limits are worth flagging at the planning stage. First, electric power is largely outside the tool: the statutory definition of public infrastructure does not reach power generation or transmission, and broader energy infrastructure was removed from the bill during the Senate amendments. A power-intensive user should not assume a SAID will carry its electrical load. Second, where water, sewer, or wastewater facilities fall within a regulated utility's certificated service territory, the district cannot build or own them without the utility's written consent and must convey them to the utility upon completion. Our Take For most master-planned residential work, and for a wide range of commercial and industrial development, a SAID will be the most efficient infrastructure-financing structure Arizona has offered. The right time to evaluate it is early in the acquisition and pre-development process, while the capital stack, the development agreement, and the entitlement strategy are still being set. Once the district's boundaries, general plan, and financing parameters are set, it is cumbersome at best to bring those into conformance later. Our Dorsey team has begun advising our developer clients on SAID formation on residential, commercial, and industrial projects statewide. If you would like us to assess whether a SAID fits a project you are working on, please reach out.

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37 Dorsey Attorneys Named 2026 Top Lawyers by Minnesota Monthly

Minnesota Monthly has recognized 37 Dorsey attorneys across 27 practice areas as 2026 Top Lawyers in Minnesota. Honorees are selected through a peer nomination process and a curated survey of practicing attorneys in Minnesota, who identify leading lawyers across a range of practice areas. Administrative / Regulatory Law Jennifer Coates Antitrust Law Michael Lindsay Banking & Financial Service Law Peter Nelson Copyright Law  Jeffrey Cadwell Corporate Law  Robert Hensley Robert Rosenbaum Criminal Defense: White-Collar  Beth Forsythe Edward Magarian RJ Zayed Health Care Law  Claire Topp Immigration Law  J. Mike Sevilla Insurance Law  Daniel Brown Intellectual Property and Patent Law  Stuart Hemphill International Trade Law  Jonathan Van Horn Labor and Employment Law  Edward Magarian Ryan Mick Melissa Raphan Land Use & Zoning  Jay Lindgren Marcus Mollison Litigation – Antitrust  Michael Lindsay F. Matthew Ralph Jaime Stilson Litigation – Commercial  Michael Lindsay Litigation – Construction  Eric Ruzicka Litigation – Intellectual Property  Peter Lancaster RJ Zayed Litigation – Labor Employment Benefits  Ryan Mick Melissa Raphan Litigation – Trusts and Estates  William J. Berens Theresa Bevilacqua Bridget Logstrom Koci Mass Tort Litigation / Class Actions  James K. Langdon Mergers & Acquisitions Law  Keith Ahlgren Rachel Benedict Brian Burke Morgan Helme John Jorgenson Brian Moore Robert Rosenbaum Jonathan Van Horn Bri Whiting Municipal Law Jay Lindgren Nonprofit/Charities Law Claire Topp Securities / Capital Markets Law Cam Hoang Robert Rosenbaum Securities Regulation Theresa Bevilacqua James K. Langdon Tax Law William J. Berens Trusts and Estates Jennifer Ede Bridget Logstrom Koci Sonny Miller Kiley Petty Henry

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Dorsey Recognized in IP STARS 2026 Asia Pacific Rankings

Dorsey & Whitney LLP is proud to announce that the firm has been recognized in the IP STARS 2026 Asia Pacific rankings as a Trusted Talent Firm for Intellectual Property in Hong Kong SAR. In addition, Partner Janet Wong has been recognized as a Trademark Star. IP STARS, published by Managing IP, is a leading guide to intellectual property firms and practitioners worldwide. Its rankings are based on extensive research conducted by Managing IP analysts, including firm submissions, client and peer feedback, interviews, and independent research. The Trusted Talent Firms designation recognizes firms with one or more ranked practitioners who have been researched and recognized by the IP STARS team. In addition, a Trademark Star is recognized as an intellectual property practitioner who has been recommended by peers and clients and is integral to the success of their firm. Janet is the head of Dorsey's Hong Kong office and the head of the firm's Greater China Intellectual Property group. With more than 20 years of experience, she advises local and multinational clients on intellectual property matters, including trademark protection, enforcement, commercialization, and related disputes, as well as commercial litigation, financial fraud matters, and corporate transactions.

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Litigation Privilege Does Not Automatically Protect Communications with Funders: The Commercial Court Clarifies the Limits of Privilege in the Context of Litigation Funding

In Uber London Ltd & Ors v Garry White & Ors; Mishcon de Reya LLP [2026] EWHC 1610 (Comm), the Commercial Court held that documents created to help a funder decide whether to invest in a claim will not ordinarily attract litigation privilege. This means that information a firm gathers while acting for a funder can later fall within the control of the claimants it goes on to represent in the same matter. Background The Claimants (a claim group of over 10,000 individual London black cab drivers and the assignee of two former minicab operators) alleged that the Defendants (three companies in the Uber group) obtained and retained their private hire operator's licence through an unlawful means conspiracy alleged to involve fraud. Because the claims were issued outside the ordinary six-year limitation period, the Claimants relied on section 32 of the Limitation Act 1980, contending they could not, with reasonable diligence, have discovered the fraud before June 2018. A preliminary issue trial was listed to determine the question of whether the Claimants discovered, or could have discovered with reasonable diligence, the alleged fraud and/or deliberate concealment only after June 2018. The Claimants were represented by Mishcon de Reya ("MdR"). However, before MdR’s engagement with the individual drivers had begun, in late 2017 it was engaged by the litigation funder Harbour to investigate the merits and value of the potential claim. During that stage, MdR corresponded extensively with Harbour and with the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association ("LTDA"), a black cab drivers' trade association. MdR was not formally engaged by the Claimants until October 2018 onwards. Once the proceedings had started, the Defendants sought disclosure of communications exchanged between MdR and Harbour before the engagement of MdR by the Claimants (the "Harbour Communications"). This included correspondence between MdR and Harbour, communications with the LTDA, and documents held on MdR's file opened in Harbour's name in connection with the potential claim. The Claimants resisted disclosure on four grounds: (i) that the documents were not relevant; (ii) on the grounds of litigation privilege; (iii) that the documents were outside their control; and (iv) that disclosure occurring so close to trial would be disproportionate. Judgment (i) Were the Harbour Communications relevant to the preliminary issue? The Court held that the Harbour Communications were likely to contain relevant material, on two bases. First, where the Claimants or the LTDA had communicated directly with MdR, that material could shed light on individual Claimants' actual knowledge of the alleged facts. Secondly, what MdR and Harbour had discovered during their investigation could inform the question of what a Claimant could reasonably have discovered at the time (even though the Defendants accepted that MdR's knowledge could not simply be imputed to the Claimants). (ii) Were the Harbour Communications protected by litigation privilege? As set out in the classic cases of Three Rivers (No. 6) [2005] 1 AC 610 and WH Holding Ltd v E20 Stadium LLP [2018] EWCA Civ 2652, communications between parties or their solicitors and third parties for the purpose of obtaining information or advice in connection with existing or contemplated litigation are privileged when the following conditions are satisfied: Litigation must be in progress or in reasonable contemplation. The communications must have been made for the sole or dominant purpose of conducting litigation. The litigation must be adversarial, not investigative or inquisitorial. The Court rejected the Claimant’s claim to be able to withhold the Harbour Communications on the basis of litigation privilege. The Court confirmed that litigation privilege protects only communications created for the dominant purpose of conducting litigation. The Court found that Harbour had instructed MdR so that Harbour could decide whether to fund the proceedings. As such, the dominant purpose of the communications was in relation to funding, not the conduct of litigation. This was distinguished from the situation where an individual litigant who takes its own funding decision. In that situation, the decision whether to fund and the decision whether to litigate are one and the same, made by the person who will actually be the claimant, and so it forms a part of that person's conduct of their own litigation. In contrast, a third-party funder's commercial decision whether to fund someone else's claim is not necessarily part of conducting that litigation. The fact that litigation privilege can, in principle, be claimed by a non-party funder (as recognised in the case of Al Sadeq v Dechert [2024] EWCA 28) did not assist Harbour, since there was no evidence it intended to play any role in the litigation itself beyond funding it. Communications between Harbour and MdR did remain capable of attracting another kind of privilege: legal advice privilege, because of the solicitor-client relationship between Harbour and MdR. But communications with third parties such as the LTDA were not automatically protected in the same way. (iii) Were the Harbour Communications within the Claimants' control? The Court also rejected the argument that the Harbour Communications sat outside the Claimants' control because they belonged to Harbour and not the Claimants. The Court’s reasoning was that once the individual Claimant drivers became MdR's clients, MdR also owed them a duty to disclose material information. That included information that MdR had originally acquired while acting for Harbour. As held in the case of Hilton v Barker Booth & Eastwood (a firm) [2005] 1 WLR 567, a solicitor owing duties to two clients cannot simply prefer one over the other, and it was unrealistic to suppose MdR would investigate the same claims for Harbour, then represent the Claimants, while disregarding everything it had already learned. The obvious commercial expectation was that this earlier work would be used to advance the Claimants' case. MdR sought to rely on a confidentiality clause in a 2024 retainer agreement between it and RGL Management Ltd (a claims management company acting on behalf of the Claimants) to argue that it was relieved of any duty to disclose information obtained while acting for other clients. The provision stated that MdR may "have acted for persons in the same or similar sector as yours and by agreeing to the terms of this letter you agree that will have no duty to disclose to you any confidential information that we have obtained, or might in the future obtain, from acting for such persons or which is derived from any other source". The Court rejected this on several grounds. Claimants who had already become MdR's clients had an existing right to information in the Harbour Communications where it was relevant to their claims before the 2024 retainer agreement. If they were to surrender that right, it would have required their informed consent (also required under the SRA Code of Conduct). The Court found no evidence that such informed consent had been given. The terms had simply been made available to the Claimants through a portal, with no indication that Claimants understood they were giving up existing rights to relevant information. The Court found that even if the terms had been contractually binding, that would not have amounted to informed consent. In addition, the wording of the clause was not sufficiently clear to show that the Claimants had agreed to waive access to this information. (iv) Was disclosure reasonable, proportionate, and necessary at this stage? The Claimants argued that it was neither reasonable nor proportionate for disclosure to be given at such a late stage (approximately two weeks before the start of the preliminary issue trial) and that it was not necessary for the just disposal of the proceedings. The Court rejected this, but it drew a distinction between two categories of documents within the Harbour Communications: Documents bearing on the actual knowledge of the individual drivers, including communications with the LTDA, were not privileged, likely straightforward to review, and directly relevant to the preliminary issue. Their disclosure was ordered as reasonable, proportionate, and necessary. Documents reflecting only MdR's or Harbour's own assessment of the merits were of more marginal, indirect relevance and largely likely to fall under legal advice privilege. A review to isolate the smaller pool of non-privileged material in this category would be time-consuming for limited benefit, so this was excluded from the order. Key Points to Note The judgment is an important reminder of several practical points: However closely a funder is involved in evaluating a claim's merits, litigation privilege will only apply to communications where the sole or dominant purpose of the communication is the conduct of litigation, not the funder's own decision on whether to finance it. Unless that communication separately attracts legal advice privilege, it may need to be disclosed. The same considerations apply to other communications. For example, in RBS Rights Litigation [2017] 1 WLR 3539 the argument that an After the Event (ATE) policy was subject to litigation privilege was rejected on a similar basis. Whilst in this case, there was no dispute as to whether litigation was in contemplation, it is important to note that litigation privilege will not automatically apply to the investigative stages of a claim, i.e. before litigation is in contemplation. Even where litigation is reasonably contemplated, the dominant purpose test must still be satisfied. Material created primarily for fact-finding, risk assessment, or other investigative purposes will not attract litigation privilege unless those activities are actually undertaken for the dominant purpose of conducting the litigation. (See The Director of the Serious Fraud Office v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Ltd [2017] EWHC 1017 (QB)). When engaging a law firm, clients should ensure that they understand whether the firm has previously obtained information about their claim while acting for another party (for example, a funder or another interested party) and how that information will be handled. Any restrictions on the firm’s ability to share relevant information with the client should be explained clearly at the outset, including what information may be withheld and why. If this decision raises questions about your own funding arrangements, disclosure strategy, or privilege position, please get in touch with our Commercial Litigation team.

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State Affordability Infrastructure Districts (SAIDs) — A Financing Tool for Taiwanese Investment in Arizona Science and Technology Parks

If you have developed a facility inside one of Taiwan's science or technology parks, you are accustomed to the one-stop-shop of government planning the park and delivering the roads, water, power, and other infrastructure before your building is even constructed. In the United States, including Arizona, land development generally does not work that way. In Arizona, the cost of infrastructure such as water, sewer, stormwater, roads, power, and the digital backbone, typically falls on the private landowner and is incurred up front before operations generate revenue to offset that cost. For a company entering the Arizona market, this is often the largest and earliest capital burden of the entire project. Arizona recently created a tool that provides a more cost-effective way for landowners and developer to finance some of that infrastructure. House Bill 2999, signed into law June 2026 and codified at Chapter 40 of Title 48 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, establishes the creation of a State Affordability Infrastructure District (SAID). How a SAID Works Landowners are now able to use a SAID to finance public infrastructure such as water, sewer, stormwater, roads, parking, lighting, communications, rail sidings and signalization, and similar improvements, through tax-exempt bonds. The bonds are repaid over up to 30 years and secured solely by the property within the SAID. No city, county, or state credit is pledged, and no obligation falls on other taxpayers, and therefore no city, county, or state approval other than from the Arizona Finance Authority (AFA). In effect, a SAID lets you spread the cost of horizontal infrastructure over the life of the asset instead of funding it entirely at the outset. And tax-exempt bonds often offer a lower interest rate than taxable or other types of financing. How a SAID is Formed A SAID is formed upon the filing of a petition with the AFA. The petition must include the finance plan, general plan, estimated costs, maximum tax rate, appraisal, bond counsel certificate, consultant list, petitioner experience, legal description, title report, and other materials. While the landowner is required to provide notice to the local governing jurisdiction, local governing jurisdiction does not have the right to approve or deny. The petition is reviewed administratively by the AFA through a standards-based process. For an inbound investor without long-standing local relationships, an objective, criteria-driven process is a meaningful advantage to the overt political process associated with other financing districts in Arizona. Formation requirements. A SAID requires consent from 100% of landowners within the proposed district; public infrastructure costs must exceed $5 million (easily met at any real scale); the district property must all be in the same county and need not be contiguous provided that noncontiguous property is located within five miles of the district's other property; and the board is initially appointed by the forming owners of the SAID district, later transitioning to election as ownership diversifies. Actual bond issuance requires an election of the SAID property owners. Ownership and corporate structure. Consent rights and board seats run with title. If you hold the Arizona land through a U.S. blocker beneath your Taiwan parent, the standard model for Taiwanese/Arizona real estate and operating investment, the U.S. property-holding entity, rather than it’s corporate parent, is the landowner of record for the district. Before formation, our Dorsey team will confirm that you have the proper corporate structure and board mechanics to be compliant.  Board composition has no citizenship or residency requirement. This is a common concern for foreign investors, and the statute answers it cleanly. Under A.R.S. § 48-7004, a director must either hold fee title to real property in the district or be an individual designated or appointed by a fee-title owner. Corporations, partnerships, and other business entities are expressly permitted to be those owners, to vote as owners, and to designate an individual to serve. There is no requirement that a director be a U.S. citizen or resident. So your U.S. property-holding entity, as landowner of record, can appoint whichever of your principals you choose, including a Taiwan-based individual, as the three-member board.  Power infrastructure limitation. The enacted definition of "public infrastructure" in A.R.S. § 48-7001 does not include electrical power generation or transmission. The reference to electrical facilities appears only as components of lighting and traffic-control systems, and the Legislature removed broader energy infrastructure from the definition during the Senate amendments. A SAID will likely not finance the high-load power infrastructure required for semiconductor fabrication, data storage, or heavy manufacturing.  Water infrastructure within a current utility CC&N. Where water, sewer, or wastewater facilities fall within a regulated utility's certificated service territory, the SAID cannot build or own them without the utility's written consent and must convey them to the utility on completion. Entitlements and zoning: The determination of entitlements, zoning, and other land use permitting, as well as construction permitting for a technology or manufacturing facilities remain with the local jurisdiction and run on a separate track. Our Dorsey team will help you coordinate the financing and entitlement timelines together. Our Dorsey team works regularly with Taiwanese and other Asia-Pacific companies entering the Arizona market. If a SAID fits your project, we can structure it for your cross-border ownership.

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Dorsey Partner Melissa Raphan Elected a Fellow of the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers

International law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP is pleased to announce that Partner Melissa Raphan has been elected a Fellow of the College of Labor & Employment Lawyers (CLEL) as part of its 2026 class. “Melissa’s election to this prestigious fellowship comes as no surprise to those of us who have had the privilege of working with her,” says Peter Nelson, Dorsey’s Managing Partner.  “She is an exceptional employment lawyer, a trusted advisor, and a leader whose impact extends far beyond her matters. Clients rely on her deep knowledge, strategic counsel, and ability to navigate complex workplace disputes and sensitive employment matters with both confidence and compassion. She has helped shape our firm, strengthen our profession, and opened doors for countless others through her commitment to mentorship and diversity. We are incredibly proud of her accomplishments and delighted to see her receive this recognition.” CLEL is a nonprofit professional association that honors the nation’s leading attorneys in the field of labor and employment law. Originally established to recognize excellence in the profession, CLEL has evolved into a respected intellectual and practical resource for the legal community and its many audiences. Its mission centers on recognizing individuals who have made significant contributions to the field, fostering the exchange of knowledge and delivering value to academia, government, the judiciary, and the broader public. Election as a fellow represents the highest level of peer acknowledgment, reflecting sustained achievement, integrity, and a commitment to advancing the profession. Melissa’s career reflects CLEL’s mission. She has been recognized both regionally and nationally for her advocacy, leadership, and achievements both inside and outside of the courtroom. Her employment litigation experience spans class actions, collective actions, and high-stakes individual disputes in state and federal courts, as well as arbitration forums including the American Arbitration Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). She is also a trusted advisor on a full range of workplace issues, from hiring and performance management to sensitive terminations and organizational change. She brings decades of experience representing clients across the financial services, healthcare, food and agriculture, and energy sectors. Melissa will be formally inducted during CLEL’s installation ceremony held in conjunction with the American Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Conference in Washington, D.C., on November 7.