Secretary of State Chuck Gray introduced House Bill 69, which would authorize the Secretary of State’s office to administratively dissolve business entities that are owned or controlled by foreign adversaries designated under federal law or regulation.

Gray said the proposal grew from the office’s work addressing business fraud and a 2024 interim working group on fraud that produced a suite of recommendations. “This would allow our office to administratively dissolve entities that are owned or controlled by foreign adversaries such as China, Iran, and North Korea,” he said.

Background and rationale: Gray described prior cases in which entities controlled by a foreign adversary were dissolved under existing fraud provisions because the filings contained fraudulent documents. He said existing statutes allow dissolution when filings themselves are fraudulent, but not simply on the basis that an entity is owned or controlled by a designated foreign adversary. The bill would add that administrative dissolution authority.

Federal cross‑reference and process: Committee members asked whether the bill would rely on federal designations; Gray said the legislation would cross‑reference federal designations and that is the intended approach. The office proposed to return with a staff walk‑through of the bill language at the committee’s next meeting so members could examine the statutory wording and implementation details.

Next steps: Committee members agreed to resume discussion on Monday to allow the Secretary’s office to provide a detailed clause‑by‑clause explanation. No committee vote occurred on HB 69 during this session.

Ending: The committee held the matter for further review and scheduled a fuller explanation by Secretary of State staff at the next available hearing date.