In this paper, we evaluate the impact of creditor rights and political risk on both the number and the value of cross-border M&A flows in a gravity model using a negative binomial model and Heckman’s two-stage selection model, respectively. Our results confirm that creditor-friendly rules and political risk decrease M&A inflows. The impact of formal legal rules is, however, almost entirely driven by politically stable countries, where those rules can be expected to hold. De jure rules therefore only matter where de facto implementation can be expected due to political stability.