Proposal Would Give Foreign Investors More Say in U.S. Airlines

[Oilwellian]

04 November 2005

Changes would expand opportunities for airlines to attract investors, DOT says

By Bruce Odessey
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington – Proposed regulatory changes intended to attract more foreign investment to ailing U.S. airlines have been announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT).

At issue is how DOT officials interpret a legal requirement concerning "actual control" of U.S. airlines. Current law mandates that U.S. airlines must be under the “actual control” of U.S. citizens to be licensed for operation.

For corporations, this means at least 75 percent of the voting interest must be held by U.S. citizens and two-thirds of the directors and officers must be U.S. citizens. The proposal would not alter that requirement, but would change how the DOT interprets “actual control,” the department said.

"We tentatively do not believe that 'actual control' should be interpreted in a way that needlessly restricts the commercial opportunities of U.S. air carriers and their ability to compete," DOT said in the preamble to the proposed rule.

Foreign investors have been unwilling to invest in U.S. airlines without certain protections that now are commonplace in cross-border financial transactions, especially about having influence over purely economic decisions, according to the proposal.

The department has been working since mid-2003 to consider what factors to use in determining whether a carrier is under the “actual control” of U.S. citizens and whether DOT regulations for determining a carrier’s citizenship status should be changed.

Link here.

On Edit:
Current law mandates that U.S. airlines must be under the "actual control" of U.S. citizens to be licensed for operation.

For corporations, this means at least 75 percent of the voting interest must be held by U.S. citizens and two-thirds of the directors and officers must be U.S. citizens.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Damn they are selling the country

piece by piece

[Sydnie]

2. And soon we will all work for them in our own back yard

[murray hill farm]

3. makes ya wonder, doesnt it?

Is there any part of our country that is still owned by US alone? Maybe it all has already been sold...and before long the new owners will just evict us all....think Mexico will let us sneak across the border and live there?

[ret5hd]

4. it's called a blow-off...

i learned this term from watching the sopranos.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Republicans are shitting in their pants.

I'm telling you, this is free market Libertarianism. It's what they planned all along and it's going to be like this until the November elections.