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Take advantage of our free expert resources, written by the experts at LCN Legal, based on their practical experience of working with multinational groups and their advisers across the globe. If you are interested in these areas, you may wish to bookmark this page to check back regularly for new information.

How would you improve this overview table for FAR analysis of intangibles?

Paul Sutton

I’d like to share an approach for creating an overview of transactions involving intangibles, and see whether you have any ideas for improving it. (When we did this with our ICA Healthcheck tool we received a lot of interesting suggestions, which we applied to create an improved version, so if you haven’t tried it out…

Intercompany Agreements

Coming soon: The LCN Legal Podcast

Paul O’Regan

What topics would you like us to cover in our new podcast? We’re going to launch a podcast very soon. Our aim is to share – in a very convenient format – the sort of real-world insights that you’d get from our webinars and workshops. Like those sessions, the podcast will focus on technical topics,…

Intercompany Agreements

Swedish IP case: did the court wrongly interpret the DEMPE functions?

Paul Sutton

Was a Swedish court wrong when it dismantled a taxpayer’s TP position? I was recently involved in an interesting discussion on LinkedIn (you can follow me here) about a decision made by a Swedish court in 2022. The case concerned an MNE that had moved the ownership of a trademark from a Swedish company to…

Intercompany Agreements

Legal form or economic substance? It’s the wrong question

Paul Sutton

One of the things I’m looking forward to in 2023 is the various workshops that we’ve scheduled on what it means for TP documentation and intercompany agreements to be tax audit-ready. In order to be robust, appropriate agreements need to be in place in advance. Intercompany transactions which take place in 2023 may not be…

Intercompany Agreements

What is ‘recourse’ in intercompany agreements?

Paul Sutton

The concept of ‘recourse’ is key to understanding risk allocation in intercompany agreements. It’s also key to implementing transfer pricing policies in a way which is consistent with the approach set out in the OECD TP Guidelines: the fundamental idea of delineating transactions between associated entities, and then allowing the risk allocation inherent in that…

Intercompany Agreements

Analysis of intangible assets: is your TP policy a cracker or a turkey?

Paul Sutton

According to conventional wisdom in transfer pricing, the OECD TP Guidelines prescribe that the economic ownership of an intangible asset depends on which entity or entities perform the so-called ‘DEMPE functions’ in relation to it. Those are Development, Enhancement, Maintenance, Protection and Exploitation. Actually, however, that statement is only partially correct. Indeed, it is potentially…

Intercompany Agreements

Try out our refined our ICA Healthcheck tool

Paul O’Regan

Thank you to everyone who suggested ways that we could improve our new ICA Healthcheck tool. The feedback was very useful. We’ve refined the tool accordingly, so if you tried it out last week then you might like to do so again. And if you haven’t done so yet, now’s a great time. …

Intercompany Agreements

Intercompany Agreements in the Examining Process for Transfer Pricing Cases

Paul Sutton

The image on the left shows an extract from the IRS Internal Revenue Manual, confirming the factors to be considered by the relevant IRS team when reviewing intercompany agreements, as part of the examining process in transfer pricing cases. It reads as follows (my italics): IRS EXAMINING PROCESS FOR TRANSFER PRICING CASES: THE ROLE OF…

Intercompany Agreements