NEW FOREIGN INVESTMENT PORTAL

18th February, 2025

The Australian Treasury has announced the release of a new Foreign Investment Portal to manage applications for Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) approvals, amongst other things. The new portal will enable submissions, payments and communication to be managed in respect of FIRB applications.

What is changing?

The new portal will change the way parties and their agents submit FIRB applications, with the entire application and review process expected to take place within the portal.

To lodge a FIRB application, a party or their agent will be prompted on the portal to provide all required information in a new structured submission form. This will remove the requirement of submitting a long form cover letter setting out the application, as is currently done in practice. Depending on the application type, the portal has been designed to present relevant questions based on information provided. The hope is that the portal will facilitate a more structured and streamlined application process, which elicits the provision of better quality information.

In addition to allowing parties to lodge the submission itself, make payment for application fees and communicate with Treasury regarding a FIRB application, the portal will also manage the post approval phase where FIRB imposes compliance obligations in an approval notice. In this regard, compliance reports will be uploaded to the portal directly.

A more streamlined approach

Although it has not been expressly stated that the release of the portal will have any impact on the time period for processing applications, in FIRB’s updated foreign investment policy announced on 1 May 2024 it set a new performance target of processing 50 percent of investment proposals within the 30-day statutory decision period. We are optimistic that the more streamlined process facilitated by the portal will result in fewer applications requiring an extension to the statutory decision period.

Fees and monetary thresholds

It appears that application processing fees and monetary thresholds will remain unaffected by the release of the new portal, noting that these have recently been increased by FIRB to reflect the customary annual indexation.

Accessing the portal

The new portal will use a Digital ID to verify the identity of the portal user.  Another welcome development is that for parties making use of agents (such as MPH Lawyers), there is no need for those parties to create their own user profiles. Instead, MPH Lawyers will be able to manage the entire process on behalf of its clients.

Portal go-live dates

In a helpful information session attended by MPH Lawyers last week, Treasury treated investors and agents to a demonstration of the new portal. It was mentioned that the anticipated go-live dates for:

  • compliance functionality is 24 February 2025;
  • submissions in private beta testing phase is 31 March 2025; and
  • submissions go-live is anticipated for end of April 2025.

MPH Lawyers is looking forward to leveraging this new portal to better assist its international clients to manage the process of making investments into Australia.

If you have any questions in relation to Foreign Investment Review Board applications or any other commercial or legal issues, feel free to contact Mark Burchnall (mburchnall@mphlawyers.com.au), Jordan Hilligenn (jhilligenn@mphlawyers.com.au) or Taila Childs (tchilds@mphlawyers.com.au) or contact +61 (0) 8 9221 0033.

 

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