Comment by whoitwas
4 months ago
I agree with the ban on security basis, but could this be abused by countries to sabotage companies? China could buy majority shares of a company and force them out of business.
4 months ago
I agree with the ban on security basis, but could this be abused by countries to sabotage companies? China could buy majority shares of a company and force them out of business.
The company would have to be specifically added by the President to a list which currently is just ByteDance, it doesn't kick in automatically.
We've just seen an example of the US blocking a sale on national security grounds -- we can block sales to China, too: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/us/politics/us-steel-nipp...
Right, but an entity or a number of entities could buy shares in a small cap company to own a majority stake without scrutiny. Seems like a good way to do espionage since corporations are global and have protected status.
Mechanically, how are a number of small <10% shareholders actually going to exert their influence? I guess they can coordinate to get their chosen board members elected, but won't it be pretty obvious that there is a huge coalition of foreign shareholders coordinating on votes? I think they'd be in violation of SEC reporting requirements in an unsubtle way.