Tax
The technical and commercial expertise you need.
Fast-paced changes in tax policy and legislation mean businesses must have a global view of how tax affects their operations and keep their tax strategies under close review.
We advise financial institutions, funds and corporate entities from all sectors on the tax issues arising on their most complex cross-border transactions, contentious tax matters and corporate tax policy issues.
Our global tax team is recognised for not only its consistently excellent technical ability, but also its market-leading international credentials and commercial judgement in these areas.
This is particularly important in the current climate, with our clients continuing to grapple with unprecedented challenges in the tax space – including the rapidly evolving international tax framework (with wide-reaching changes on the horizon at both an OECD and EU level) and increasingly litigious tax authorities.
Our tax specialists work closely with teams across the firm – including our corporate, disputes, antitrust, financing and IP lawyers – to provide clients with robust commercial solutions.
They also operate efficiently across borders, including working seamlessly with the firm’s StrongerTogether partner law firms.
Client successes
Advising AB InBev on the tax aspects of its acquisition of SABMiller, including the divestiture of SABMiller’s central and eastern European business, and the disposal of the Peroni, Grolsch and Meantime brands.
Advising a US-headquartered multinational on a dispute in which the French tax authorities (FTA) contended that the group’s European sales and distribution structure lacked economic substance and relied on inappropriate transfer pricing.
The FTA had mounted a very aggressive BEPS-inspired challenge, in which they had alleged tax fraud and conducted dawn raids.
After dropping the fraud allegations, the FTA contended, on the basis of the French general anti-abuse rules and transfer pricing rules, that the group’s operating model resulted in an over-allocation of taxable income to the Swiss company relative to that company’s actual risks, functions and local infrastructure.
We defended the company, and were successful in settling the matter at a cost to the client amounting to a small fraction of the FTA’s original €50m+ claim.
Advising eight Swiss banks in negotiations with US authorities to settle allegations or potential allegations that they had facilitated tax evasion by US taxpayers.
This was an important initiative for the Swiss banks as they were facing criminal liabilities in the US and fines of upwards of several hundreds of millions of dollars.
Along with the firm's dispute resolution group, our team worked in Switzerland and the US to identify customers with US tax obligations, determine whether they had complied with those obligations and, where they had not, help them comply with US tax laws in order to obtain the best terms under the US Department of Justice’s settlement programme.
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Our team
Our Practice Group Lead and Regional Heads of Tax are listed below, but you can also see our global Tax team here.
David Haworth 合伙人
London
Silvia Paternain 合伙人
Madrid
Claude Stansbury 合伙人
Washington, DC
Cyril Valentin 合伙人
Paris
Eelco van der Stok 合伙人
Amsterdam
Dr. Georg Roderburg 合伙人
Düsseldorf
Axel Haelterman 合伙人
Brussels
Helen Buchanan 合伙人
London
Renato Paternollo 合伙人
Milan