Italian Authorities Missed 2018 Chinese Acquisition of Drone Maker, Report Says
Italian authorities are investigating the 2018 acquisition of an Italian drone maker by a Chinese state-owned company, which was able to skirt past Europe’s foreign investment screening mechanisms, The Wall Street Journal reported Nov. 15. A Hong Kong shell company…
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owned by government-run China Railway Rolling Stock Corp. and a government-controlled investment group bought Alpi Aviation Srl, the report said. Soon after the purchase, Alpi began transferring its drone manufacturing technology to China. Italian and European authorities “had no knowledge” of the move, the report said, and “stumbled on” Alpi’s links to China while conducting a separate investigation into Alpi’s potential illegal sales of aircraft parts to Iran. Alpi “denied it had violated laws on transferring strategic information and technology out of the country,” the report said. The European Union recently implemented new criteria for screening foreign investment to place more scrutiny on deals that involve critical technologies and certain dual-use items (see 1903210049).