WASHINGTON, April 9 - A dispute between a U.S. medical-device startup and a Chinese investor ended with a CFIUS decision that favored the Chinese company after an intervening lobbyist arranged what the investor characterized as a crucial senior-level meeting in Washington.
Public lobbying disclosures and interviews indicate that Checkmate, a lobbying firm connected socially to Donald Trump Jr., helped arrange a meeting between China’s Grand Pharmaceutical Group’s lawyer and the newly confirmed head of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) in early January. The meeting preceded CFIUS’ late-January rejection of a filing by Minnesota-based FastWave, which had sought a CFIUS review to require Grand Pharmaceutical to divest or reduce its role as an investor.
The CFIUS letter rejecting FastWave’s filing said the committee’s action was based on "material misstatements" in the startup’s submissions, and did not address national security concerns in its decision, according to a document reviewed by Reuters. FastWave’s attempt to obtain recourse through CFIUS has left the startup close to insolvency, the company told the committee.
Sequence of events
Records show Grand Pharmaceutical retained Checkmate in December and paid the firm $30,000 for two weeks of work on matters related to CFIUS that month. Checkmate is led by Ches McDowell, a North Carolina lobbyist who appears in social media posts hunting with Donald Trump Jr. and, according to public records, co-owns a North Carolina property with him since 2021.
Two people familiar with the matter told Reuters that Checkmate facilitated a meeting in early January for Jeff Bialos, the lawyer representing Grand Pharmaceutical, to speak with Chris Pilkerton, who had just been confirmed by the Senate to lead CFIUS. One of those people said that during the meeting, Bialos argued the dispute was commercial in nature and posed no national security risk. Checkmate and Bialos acknowledged that the firm arranged a meeting with senior Treasury officials but declined to specify attendees. Bialos later told reporters he could have scheduled the meeting himself.
FastWave’s counsel said the startup was only able to secure calls with CFIUS staffers in January, and that requests for a call with Pilkerton were made twice without success, according to documents seen by Reuters. The two sides therefore had different levels of access to senior officials during the same period that the committee was reviewing FastWave’s request.
CFIUS decision and rationale
In late January, CFIUS rejected FastWave’s petition. The rejection letter cited "material misstatements" in FastWave’s submissions as the reason for denial. One example highlighted by the committee involved inconsistent statements by FastWave about whether Grand Pharmaceutical had provided substantive feedback on its fundraising efforts: FastWave told CFIUS in July 2025 that Grand Pharmaceutical had not provided "substantive feedback," but in August it said the Chinese investor had engaged in "substantive discussion."
FastWave responded in February 2026 by telling CFIUS that Grand Pharmaceutical’s edits to a termsheet did not constitute substantive feedback and that those edits only occurred after FastWave’s July statement. CFIUS’ rejection did not evaluate potential national security risks tied to the deal; instead, Treasury emphasized that CFIUS may reject filings based on material inaccuracies.
Tatiana Sullivan, a lawyer who handles CFIUS matters, described the committee’s letter as atypical, saying the panel usually tries to work with companies to resolve misunderstandings and only rarely rejects filings outright except for serious inaccuracies tied to national security.
Commercial dispute at the center
The business at issue concerns a specialized catheter FastWave developed that uses a laser to treat calcium build-up in arteries. Grand Pharmaceutical invested $12 million into FastWave in 2021 and holds a roughly 40% stake. That investment agreement included veto rights over future capital raises, a provision FastWave said is common for investors that seek to avoid dilution of their stake.
U.S. law regulates shipments of the catheter’s laser component to China because the technology could also have applications that enhance Chinese military capabilities, according to the information in the record. FastWave initially welcomed Grand Pharmaceutical’s 2021 investment, but later grew wary of the Chinese firm after seeing a Grand Pharmaceutical press release announcing a partnership with Jiangsu Zhenyi Medical Technology, a Chinese company that FastWave viewed as a competitor.
FastWave alleged that Grand Pharmaceutical’s actions were obstructing its ability to raise additional capital and expressed concern that the investor might be trying to acquire FastWave’s intellectual property. The Chinese firm, through its lawyer, argued it was only distributing the device and that any relationship with Jiangsu Zhenyi Medical Technology did not breach its agreements with FastWave. Reuters could not independently determine whether Grand Pharmaceutical’s relationship with Jiangsu Zhenyi breached the contractual commitments between the investor and FastWave.
Access, influence and reaction
The case has attracted scrutiny from experts and lawmakers who were briefed on the facts by Reuters. Several China experts and three Democratic members of Congress expressed concern that Chinese firms could gain influence with the Trump administration by hiring lobbyists with close connections to the president’s circle. One critic, Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said that if a Chinese company can enlist such lobbying to win the government’s siding against an American company on what it framed as a national security matter, "that is the height of the swamp."
Tim LaPira, a political science professor at James Madison University, described the pattern of hiring well-connected partisan lobbyists as common. "If you want to speak to the party in power, you are going to need to hire somebody that has those partisan connections," he said.
The White House pushed back against allegations that the decision reflected undue influence. Kush Desai, a White House spokesman, said nothing has changed in CFIUS’ diligence, investigation, or enforcement operations, which "continue to robustly and vigilantly safeguard America’s national security interests." He added that any suggestion the Trump administration would weaken CFIUS at the behest of special interests was "categorically false."
Procedural concerns from the startup
FastWave’s CEO Scott Nelson told Reuters the committee’s procedural choices were "opaque and highly irregular" and that they made it difficult for the company to protect critical technology from a Chinese investor. He said CFIUS never flagged the committee’s concerns to FastWave or gave the company an opportunity to correct alleged inaccuracies before rejecting the filing on the final day of an extensive review period.
Nelson noted the review lasted over 200 days and included 29 sets of questions, while CFIUS’ rejection arrived months after the statements that the committee identified as problematic. FastWave also warned the committee that its severe financial distress would make refiling infeasible; the company told CFIUS it had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy.
Bialos, the lawyer for Grand Pharmaceutical, defended the process, describing it as "a lengthy fact-based investigation" whose outcome was not politically driven. He framed the underlying conflict as "a private commercial dispute... being squeezed into the CFIUS box." Treasury declined to comment on the specifics of individual cases.
Lobbying firm and personal ties
Checkmate’s leader, Ches McDowell, met Donald Trump Jr. at a conservative gala in 2016 and subsequently developed a relationship with him that included offering a hunting trip, according to the lobbying firm’s confirmation of the connection. McDowell appears alongside Don Jr. in social media images, including an October 2024 Instagram photo where McDowell stands beside Don Jr. and the Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy holding live falcons. A January 2024 Facebook post shows Don Jr., his brother Eric Trump, and McDowell posing with rifles above a row of dead birds.
Checkmate said McDowell, though listed on Grand Pharmaceutical’s lobbying disclosure, did not personally work on the matter; Reuters found no evidence contradicting that statement. The firm declined to identify which senior Treasury officials participated in the meeting it arranged.
What lies ahead
Technically, FastWave could file a new petition with CFIUS, but the company has told the committee its dire financial condition likely makes that impossible. The committee’s rejection on grounds of material misstatements leaves the matter resolved for now without a determination on national security. That outcome has firm-level and sectoral implications: it affects the business prospects of a medical-device startup focused on a product whose export could implicate defense-related controls, and it raises questions about how commercial disputes involving foreign investment are adjudicated in Washington.
Both sides continue to assert their positions: FastWave insists it was denied procedural fairness and that the company’s statements were not materially misleading; Grand Pharmaceutical and its counsel maintain that no national security risk existed and that the matter was chiefly commercial. Treasury reiterated that CFIUS may reject filings that contain material inaccuracies, and declined to provide further comment on individual cases.
Reporting for this article relied on public filings, a CFIUS letter provided to the startup, interviews with sources familiar with the matter, and social media and public records concerning individuals and firms named in public disclosures. Treasury, the Chinese Embassy in Washington, and representatives for Don Jr. did not provide additional public comment when contacted.