back to article UK government publishes guidance on security rules for tech takeovers

The UK government has published guidance describing what technologies may be caught within the National Security and Investment Act 2021, which is set to give ministers the power to halt mergers and acquisitions. The legislation, due to come into force in January, gives the government leeway to scrutinise buyouts and …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    18. Political Party Donations From Foreign Interests.

    Bigger threat to our national security than anything else on that list.

    I predict this is just going to backwater the British tech sector. Let's see ...

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: 18. Political Party Donations From Foreign Interests.

      You can still buy power and water suppliers and newspapers

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, basically..

    ANY deal involving anything more technical than a pair of scissorts now required investors to "sponsor"* bits of Westminster to make it happen. This is IMHO simply setting up a massive new bribing industry.

    * Bribes camouflaged as very excessive lunches, business trips and promises of cushy positions in an approach familiar to, for instance, Irish privacy commissioners.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: So, basically..

      Yes but it would stop foreigners taking over LandRover (clause 7,11,12,15,17)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So, basically..

        Land Rover? The Indian company?

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: So, basically..

          No Land Rover the: Critical Suppliers to Government, Defence, Military and Dual-Use, Transport company - no way they would allow that to be bought by Asiatics

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: So, basically..

            Well after saying Tata to JLR, maybe uk.gov can procure from the British new kid on the block: *lneos.

            Nothing says British better than Monaco-based Sir Jim's Swiss company's French built pastiche of a Spanish Santana PS10.

  3. Chris Coles

    We are a technology colony of the US; this is just icing on their cake

    A The Register already knows, it is my firm belief that the signing of the Defence Trade Co-operation Treaty, which allows the US to simply list any technology that they believe is being worked on by ANY UK, (and Australian), facility; must be handed to the US without even any paper trail; which treaty now makes us a technology colony of the US . . . That we are no longer an independent nation free to develop our own unique defence technology industrial base. Now take a close look at the above list of technologies . . . and realise that is exactly what the treaty describes. So this is simply an extension of the colonisation of our nation; and you can bet your bottom $ that the US is the leader of this new guidance; not parliament. We have been colonised; this is simply an extension of that process; designed to take full control of the national inventive capacity.

    1. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

      Re: We are a technology colony of the US; this is just icing on their cake

      "now makes us a technology colony of the US"

      What do you mean by 'now'?

      I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for: RADAR, Digital electronic computing, Jet propulsion, Supersonic flight

      1. EnviableOne

        Re: We are a technology colony of the US; this is just icing on their cake

        television, turbines, steam engines, railways, Jet Airliners, Supersonic Airliners, SONAR, Programmable Computers (Colossus,)

        and these are just the era-defining ones

    2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: We are a technology colony of the US; this is just icing on their cake

      Crikey, Chris Coles, I thought Uncle Sam was Blighty’s Bitch ...... leading in ways forward which destroy all assets for opposition and render forces of a bankrupt nation scattered far and wide as unwelcome strangers in foreign lands and in other deep and dark interest jurisdictions.

  4. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    Happy

    Traditional American security methods

    "Don't write anything you can phone. Don't phone anything you can talk. Don't talk anything you can whisper. Don't whisper anything you can smile. Don't smile anything you can nod. Don't nod anything you can wink." - Earl K. Long

    1. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

      Re: Traditional American security methods

      Don't use your phone and don't use mine,

      Don't speak treason, they're tapping the line.

      - Redgum

  5. steelpillow Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Never thought I'd see the day

    Forbidding commercial activities like this is such a wrong way to go. Who will ever set up their hi-tech startup in this country again?

    Look, Boris ducky, if nobody in the country can attract the necessary investor confidence, then at least allow the current crowd of deadheads to cream off some hard foreign cash and invest in what they /do/ understand. Or, if UK Gov really cannot afford to lose it, then nationalise it and be damned, like you did to Southeastern Trains. Just don't expect feckin' tickboxes to bail you out.

    Sheesh! Never thought I'd live to see the day our diehard capitalists would end up pissing into the wind like this. And me a right bloody patriot, too.

  6. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    To Boldly Go ....

    In the new guidance, the government said it wanted businesses and investors to get ready for the changes in the law. It wants them to assess whether the government must be notified of an acquisition and understand what they are to expect when they go through the notification and assessment process.

    And whenever the government is so notified that the certain use and a quite specific methodical application of a sensitive novel national security threatening technology is a prime product for international/internetional/universal sale, does the government step in with a satisfactory open market price compensation package for vendors/proprietary intellectual property holders who have fully complied with such a regulation for notification of a very possible merger and acquisition position ...... if it wishes to prevent any other third party merger and/or foreign entity acquisition?

    A sensible question to ask for a number of extremely pressing reasons with a few being ....

    1) Such as may be such a product are nowadays enabled and freely advertised and made simply available for sale to all and sundry aware and in the market place for its warefare.

    2) They be incredibly valuable and therefore eye-waveringly expensive to obtain and maintain and retain.

    3) Virtually all are extremely volatile and practically impossible to detune or render inoperable, thus are they constantly to be awarded and rewarded with all due mutually beneficial care and positive reinforcing attention.

    Is the government public sector body wise to step into that field if it cannot pay the price for its remote joint regulation, or does it imagine the government have private sector partners who be more than willing to take a punt and stump up the lucre in order to have a seat around the leading table in, ideally, an effective command and control of almightily disruptive products, for there are surely more than just one and no reason at all not to expect that there can and therefore will be many more in the near future? Do they possess and wield, as a viable cohesive body, the intelligence necessary to succeed in such an AIdVenturing?

    Those are the questions asked of governments required by vendors for answering in order for decisions on whom to notify to be taken. No answers, no notifications.

    1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      Re: To Boldly Go ...The Gilded Note under the Rug that Opens New Doors to Boris ??????? *

      This sort of Dunkirk-like retreat from Otherworldly ExtraTerrestrial Forces is that which the Private Sector and Pirate Sources May Most Likely Presumed and Assumed as being Fully Responsible For ..... with Lodes of Flash Fast Cash to Invest in NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive Engagement and Entertainment Programming Future Directions and ACTivities into Media Presentation for Multiple Myriad Multitudes to Look Out For and Tune In To ..... or Tune In to Turn Into an Alternate Being

      When that is so, is it a Once in an Absolute Age Opportunity to Engage with Direct Virtual Delivery of Novel VAIOSystems in Executive Administrative Control of Future Controls for Present IntelAIgent Command of Future Controllers ...... ?

      * ...... is a Highly Speculative Earnest Inquisition for Cogent Reply and Positive Response

      cc No 10 Flat A1 re: OHMS Sources and Resources in Some ESPecially Dark Phantom Black Watch Forces Experts at their Work in Almighty Immaculate Plays for Places and Spaces in which to Rest and Prosper/Invest In and Grow Tall and Straight In Successfully to Enjoy the Greatest of Serial Surreal Surprises Regularly so to Invite Enthusiasm and Vigilant Diligence to All Crazy Party Circles.

      :-) Something to put in the Red Box with Instructions Drafted for Future Leaders ....... a Rare Breed in Deed, indeed. You don't get many professing to be expert in that pure beginners field when one and all are alive to you and One and All are at One with IT ....... for how often does that happen to you for anyone to be thought more expert than a first-timer/maiden quantum leaper.

      Spoof Experts ACTivate Spooks and Attract their Interest if Offering Almighty Quantum Fare Ware.

      They might want IT too, which is handy whenever there's a slush funded pot to cover needs and expenses until death do part them.

      Enter the Gold Card Carte Blanche Card Lounge ...... where Balances Drawn Upon by Right Royal Assets are Inexhaustible Large and Expanding.

      Yes. Well ..... . That just needed to be said out louder and clearer than was presented before.

      1. This post has been deleted by its author

        1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          Re: Politically Inept Intransigence. What Fully to Expect whenever No Good Deed Goes Unpunished ‽ .

          What is discovered is .........if Initially Planned Intellectual Property Direction and Resultant Efficacy of Joint Fabulous Fabless Fighter Fleet Flight Control prove themselves to be problematical and non super conductive and too extremely disruptive to be easily considered and realised as constructive and creative, for whatever reason then one may ponder to choose to discover to justify and blame and shame with the brilliant bright light of revealing hindsight spotlighting Augmented Inaugural Joint Command Flight Plan Faults and Deficiencies, is it a simple matter to stabilise subsequent hypersonic travel for targets of another persuasion at a new destination with SMARTR Adjustments to the Angle of Attack to prevent Catastrophic All Systems Stalls.

          That does though leave the earlier failed tested systems behind to be destroyed in the Wake of Immaculate Progress and Rapid Rabid Developments/Viciously Virile and Vivaciously Vital Virulent ACTivity.

          Do you think that is the De Facto Default Relative Mirroring Picture of the Present Current State of Earthly Realities? And do you have any Idea at all about what happens next for the best, or for better or worse?

          Answers below please to that and/or those who might very well have a rightful need to know.

          1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

            Re: Politically Inept Intransigence. What Fully to Expect whenever No Good Deed Goes Unpunished ‽ .

            Here’s a prime example of a stunningly inept what happens next for the best, or for better or worse plan .... https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2021-11-18/should-we-get-prepared-real-duck-and-cover-provocation

            Default Fodder for Vain Fanciful Fools who be but Blunt Tools in the Times and Spaces of Pin Sharp SMARTR Landscapes and Live Operational Virtual Environments. I Kid U Not and you know that to be true too ...... for you most certainly should by now if you are not retarded with myriad learning difficulties.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Everything's Good To The Extent Of Fine...

              ...but - what to do,then?

              Yes, Boolean=True

              1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

                Re: Everything's Good To The Extent Of Fine...

                ...but - what to do,then? ..... AC

                Simple.

                If intransigence, petrification and putrefaction persist to insist on terrifying and terrorising existence, do its leading conspirators and conspiring cohorts alike worthily attract and fully deserve the relentless barrage and collateral damage of monumentally destructive attacks and creative assaults with all manner and means of almighty available firepower and AWEsome weaponry which is/are comprehensively programmed and immaculately provided to obliterate and reduce its perverse arsenals and corrupting effects to virtual ash and COSMIC dust.

                There is practically no need for it to be more complicated nor more difficult than that.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Everything's Good To The Extent Of Fine...

                  O good'ole sound of a modem

                  Somewhere deep@sea

      2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: To Boldly Go ...The Gilded Note under the Rug that Opens New Doors to Boris ??????? *

        Well, one great thing you can be certain of is, if Boris doesn’t know what he is really talking about with specific particular and peculiar regard to any matters quantum related, and he apparently has expressed an interest in provisioning it as an almighty Blighty opportunity ........ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/21/next-giant-leap-boris-johnson-go-big-on-quantum-computing ....... there be El Regers able to provide him with all that is required which he would be missing and longing for to supply to media watchers content to hang on his every uttered word as if gospel and Churchillian/Wannabe Platonic Caesarian.

        Quite whether though he leads with it in a pioneering vanguard or follows maddened crowds and maiden clouds from the confines of a padded caboose experiencing the trials and tribulations and motions and machinations in rearguard action wakes, is that which is raised as a valid question for answering henceforth from the likes of here now.

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