On May 16, 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the EU cannot conclude a free trade agreement with Singapore as it currently stands, without the participation of the member states. According to the press release, the European Commission submitted a request to the Court to assess whether the EU has exclusive competence allowing it to sign and conclude a trade agreement between the EU and Singapore that the parties initialed in 2013. The Court held “that the free trade agreement with Singapore cannot, in its current form, be concluded by the EU alone, because some of the provisions envisaged fall within competences shared between the EU and the Member States. It follows that the free trade agreement with Singapore can, as it stands, be concluded only by the EU and the Member States acting together.” The Court did find that the EU has exclusive competence over a number of matters within the agreement, but that there were two areas where the EU did not have “exclusive competence, namely the field of non-direct foreign investment (‘portfolio’ investments made without any intention to influence the management and control of an undertaking) and the regime governing dispute settlement between investors and States.”