The European Commission’s foreign subsidies investigation of Nuctech designated an unlawful extraterritorial jurisdiction measure.
Just one week after the Ministry of Commerce issued its first blocking order, on 15 May 2026, the Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China (MOJ) invoked the Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Counteracting Unlawful Foreign States’ Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (Counter-Extraterritoriality Regulations), identifying the European Commission’s (Commission) investigation of Nuctech Co., Ltd. (Nuctech) under the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) against Chinese entities as an unlawful extraterritorial jurisdiction measure and prohibiting any organisation or individual from implementing or assisting in it (“Prohibition Order”).1 The Prohibition Order is the first enforcement action under the regulations, in force since 13 April 2026; the operative language names no class of addressees and no territorial limit. The order is best read not as an instrument directed at the Commission, whose institutional incentives, examined below, make retreat unlikely, but at the third parties whose cooperation the Commission’s investigation requires.
