USA – CALIFORNIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Derek Liu, Aarthi Belani and Lawrence Lee, Baker McKenzie
value as standalone entities pursuing their own expan- sion strategies. Increase in cross-border M&A activity Cross-border M&A activity also increased in 2025. Transactions involving acquirers from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific are growing in the Americas, while deal makers in the Americas remained focused on domestic transactions. Howev- er, as countries beyond the USA reduce their barriers to entry, an increase in cross-border transactions may be seen. Countries such as the UAE are lifting their foreign ownership restrictions; similarly, Saudi Ara- bia has streamlined its foreign investment process, potentially boosting transactional activity. Addition- ally, European countries have also signalled a shift in antitrust rules that could promote growth, while the UK government has requested regulators to be pro- growth and investment. India stands out as having experienced increased M&A and foreign direct investment (FDI) activity in 2025, with deal value in Q3 up 37% year-on-year, including Emirates NBD’s landmark USD3 billion acquisition of RBL Bank, the largest FDI in Indian financial services to date. India is one of the fastest-growing destina- tions for global investors, with a 26% rise in FDI in the first half of the year alone. This rise in cross-border deal activity can be attributed to liberalised policies and improved ease-of-doing-business rankings. All of this occurs against the backdrop of growing tar- iffs – which increase the uncertainty of cross-border M&A but also provide a strong incentive for acquirers to buy into local markets in order to avoid tariffs. Antitrust impacts on M&A in 2025 The Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) both continue to identify concentration in the technology sector as an ongoing enforcement priority under the current administration. Indeed, both the Chairman of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, and the Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Gail Slater, bring to their current roles as heads of the US Antitrust Agency a history of scrutiny of the technology industry. Among other roles, Gail Slater’s prior experience includes serving in the first Trump administration’s White
House National Economic Council, with responsibil- ity for technology and telecommunications policy. As solicitor general of Virginia, Andrew Ferguson was also involved in the federal litigation alleging that Google had monopolised the ad-tech markets. With the expansion of the information required from notifying parties under the new HSR form – including the need to identify pipeline products and developing technologies that may compete with one another, as well as vertical relationships between the parties – the FTC and DOJ are also armed with more information than in the past to support their in-depth review of transactions in the tech sector. As such, the risk of extended investigations of strategic transactions in the tech sector can be expected to remain for the foreseeable future. At the same time, the extended scrutiny of a transaction does not mean that it will be successfully challenged in court, as exemplified by a federal court judge’s recent ruling in favour of Meta and dismissing the FTC’s challenge to Meta’s acquisi- Following the wave of Chinese outbound investment in 2015–2016, the United States and other Western countries began to tighten scrutiny of foreign invest- ments, and introduced or expanded FDI regimes aimed at protecting national security and economic interests. In the United States, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 expanded the jurisdiction of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to cover certain non-con- trolling investments and real estate transactions with US businesses involving critical technology, critical infrastructure and sensitive personal data. The Euro- pean Union (EU) adopted Regulation (EU) 2019/452 in March 2019, establishing a co-operation framework for FDI screening that became operational in Octo- ber 2020. Australia broadened its Foreign Investment Review Board powers in 2021, and the United King- dom introduced the National Security and Invest- ment Act 2021, which came into full force in 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend, as governments feared opportunistic acquisitions of stra- tegic assets during economic downturns. tions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Impact of geopolitics on tech M&A
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