Treasury proposes COINS Act outbound investment rule and adds biotechnology

Serguey Asael Shinder28 October 2026, 09:261 min read

The US Treasury issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on 22 October to update its Outbound Investment Security Program under the Comprehensive Outbound Investment Security (COINS) Act, which Congress passed as part of the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. The act puts into law the government's approach to regulating certain outbound investments by US persons.

The statute directs the Treasury Secretary to write two sets of rules: one requiring US persons to notify Treasury of certain transactions with covered foreign persons engaged in "notifiable" technologies, and one prohibiting certain other transactions with covered foreign persons engaged in "prohibited" technologies. The law names five sectors — semiconductors and microelectronics, artificial intelligence, quantum information technologies, high-performance computing and supercomputing, and hypersonic systems — and allows the Secretary to add others through notice-and-comment rulemaking. Treasury has used that power to add biotechnology to the proposal.

The proposal covers requirements for US persons, including the foreign entities they control; technical specifications that set the scope of covered transactions; what a notification must contain; a process for non-binding feedback and confidential submissions; the knowledge standard and the "reasonable and diligent inquiry" expected before a deal; and what counts as a violation and the penalties. Treasury is inviting comments on all aspects of the proposal.

What it means

For investors, the operative questions are the technical thresholds and the diligence standard, because those decide which deals need a filing and which are barred. Adding biotechnology widens the program beyond the sectors Congress listed, and the comment period is where funds with cross-border portfolios can shape where those lines fall.