Tax
Our highly regarded team advises on the tax issues arising from the full range of commercial and financial matters, including many of the largest cross-border transactions. As a full service tax practice, we also provide tax consultancy and contentious tax advice.
- We are recognised not only for our technical excellence but also for the commercial and responsive nature of our advice. We believe in the importance of getting to know our clients, their business and their approach to tax and are always sensitive to their public profile.
- In addition to many of the biggest UK-headquartered, publicly listed multinationals, our impressive roster of clients includes US and European companies, large private companies, individuals and government bodies.
- We are instructed on the biggest and most complicated mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance transactions where our role includes advising on structuring the transaction, negotiating the tax aspects of the documentation and managing large multinational teams of tax advisers on cross-border deals.
- We work with our clients and other lawyers in the firm to develop innovative and tax efficient solutions to a wide range of commercial issues and then ensure that these are implemented to meet the tax and commercial objectives of the matter in hand.
- Clients seek our advice on a broad range of other tax issues that affect their businesses such as contentious tax, including State aid investigations, and tax policy matters, including challenges for global businesses caused by the changing international tax landscape.
Key experience
We advised GlaxoSmithKline on various transactions, including the creation of a world-leading Consumer Healthcare joint venture with Pfizer, the sale of Horlicks to Unilever, a major asset swap with Novartis, and the creation of the Galvani bioelectronics joint venture with Verily Life Sciences.
We advised HM Treasury on the Help to Buy: ISA scheme, the introduction of decommissioning relief deeds and the impact of changes in North Sea taxation. We also advised the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in respect of the Film and TV Production Restart Scheme being put in place by the UK Government in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
We advised Ocado Group on its IPO, its partnership with Morrisons, and its online grocery retail joint venture with Marks and Spencer Group, as well as, most recently, in connection with its new customer fulfilment centre and a concurrent three-legged capital raise comprising a share placing to institutional investors, a share offer to retail investors via the PrimaryBid platform and an offer of convertible bonds to institutional investors.
We advised Prudential plc on the demerger of its UK & Europe business, one of the largest and most complex demergers undertaken in the UK, resulting in two separately-listed companies, M&G plc and Prudential plc, and, more recently, on the demerger of its US business, Jackson Financial Inc., which completes its strategic transformation and enables it to focus exclusively on its higher-growth and higher risk-adjusted return businesses in Asia and Africa.
We have advised several large UK and non-UK headquartered multinational companies in resolving DPT and associated transfer pricing enquiries raised by HMRC. You can find further information on our contentious tax practice here.
Whether we are advising a multinational conglomerate, a bank, a government department or an individual, we believe in the importance of getting to know our client, their business and their approach to tax and are always sensitive to their public profile.
key Contacts
