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Intercompany Agreements

Embedded Royalties for Sales of Pepsi Concentrate in Australia

26 April 2023   Guest Author

This is a guest post by Harold McClure, a New York City-based independent economist with 26 years of transfer pricing and valuation experience. (One of several that he has written for us.) Here he looks in detail at a case currently ongoing in Australia, Pepsi, in the light of a 2020 case involving Coca-Cola.   …

Intercompany Agreements

The 3M ‘blocked income’ TP litigation, and the impact of legal restrictions on TP policies

24 April 2023   Paul Sutton

In February, the US Tax Court ruled in favour of the IRS in a transfer pricing case involving 3M (3M Co. v. Commissioner, 160 T.C. 3). The case will have important implications for ongoing TP litigation and historic tax positions. It involved legal restrictions (as opposed to tax restrictions) on the payment of royalties by…

Intercompany Agreements

Skechers USA, Inc v Wisconsin Department of Revenue: Lack of substance in US-US transactions

10 April 2023   Paul Sutton

The decision of the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission in the case of Skechers USA, Inc (filed on 24 February 2023) is an interesting example of a transfer pricing challenge to domestic US arrangements. It’s also a good reminder of what corporates should not do in the context of group restructuring projects, namely: Fail to document…

Intercompany Agreements

The Dolce & Gabbana Litigation and Type C Service Provider Arrangements

15 March 2023   Guest Author

This is a guest post by Harold McClure, a New York City-based independent economist with 26 years of transfer pricing and valuation experience. (One of several that he has written for us.) Here he discusses the issues raised by a 2022 Italian tax case: Italy vs Dolce & Gabbana.   Paul Sutton’s recent discussion of…

Intercompany Agreements

Intra group debt: loan agreements vs loan notes

12 March 2023   Paul Sutton

Differences in legal terminology and legal mechanics From a transfer pricing perspective it’s almost impossible to ‘delineate’ intra group debt without reference to the legal terms. One financial instrument cannot be compared with another for pricing purposes unless there is clarity on the associated legal rights and obligations of the respective parties. Here we’re talking…

Intercompany Agreements

New Podcast episode: the most important learnings from BlackRock

6 March 2023   Paul Sutton

The key implications of the BlackRock judgment In summer last year, the UK Upper Tribunal’s decision in the case of HMRC v BlackRock Holdco 5 LLC caused some commotion in the Transfer Pricing community. There is still general agreement that the judgment has significant implications, but what exactly are they? Our new podcast episode explores…

Intercompany Agreements

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

15 January 2023   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

What is ‘recourse’ in intercompany agreements?

19 December 2022   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
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