Late yesterday, the White House issued an order forbidding Broadcom from continuing with its efforts to takeover Qualcomm. The surprise move by the White House seems to have been designed to prevent Broadcom from playing its, er, trump card by reincorporating in the United States. This would block the power of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) from reviewing the transaction and prevent the President from prohibiting or setting the transaction aside. Under the Defense Production Act, CFIUS and the President may only rely on national security considerations to block a “covered transaction,” which is defined as “any merger, acquisition, or takeover … by or with any foreign person which could result in foreign control of any person engaged in interstate commerce in the United States.” If Broadcom, a Singapore corporation traded on NASDAQ, reincorporated in the United States, as it announced that it intended to do after the tax bill was passed, it would no longer be a foreign person as defined in section 800.216 of the CFIUS regulations. At that point, both the President and CFIUS would have no power to block the takeover.

The timeline here is informative. On March 4, CFIUS issued an order to Qualcomm to delay its annual shareholders meeting from March 6, 2018, to April 5 to give it time to investigate the transaction. Then on March 12, Broadcom announced that it would complete its re-domiciliation in the United States by April 3, giving it plenty of time to continue its efforts to acquire Qualcomm at the April 6 shareholders meeting, except not as a foreign person but as a U.S. person immune from CFIUS review. A few hours later that day, the White House released its order blocking the Broadcom bid.

The most interesting part of that order is Section 2(g), which states:

Any transaction or other device entered into or employed for the purpose of, or with the effect of, avoiding or circumventing this order is prohibited.

Both the timing and language of this section clearly suggest that it is intended to prohibit Broadcom from re-domiciling in the United States for the purpose of continuing its hostile takeover campaign. In addition, section 2(d) orders Qualcomm to hold its annual meeting 10 days after shareholder notice is given, which notice is to be given as soon as possible. Ten days is the shortest notice period permissible under section 222 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. This, of course, is clearly designed to have the meeting before the date, April 3, by which Broadcom announced it would no longer be a foreign person.

Can the White House get away with this? Although section 721(e) says that the actions by the President under section 721(d) are not reviewable by any court, the actions here still have to be taken under section 721(d). The actions permitted by section 721(d) are those that “the President considers appropriate to suspend or prohibit any covered transaction.” But here the President is clearly trying to prohibit a transaction that is not covered. If Broadcom completes its transition to a U.S. person before Qualcomm can hold its annual shareholders meeting, nothing — and that includes section 2(g) of the order — can stop Broadcom from pursuing its takeover bid.

As they say praise the Lord, pay the lawyers, and pass the popcorn.

Photo Credit: Broadcom HQ by Coolcaesar [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Broadcomheadquarters.jpg [cropped]. Copyright 2007 Coolcaesar

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