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Supreme Court deals blow to litigation funders in the CAT The Supreme Court has held that litigation funding agreements that allow funders to recover a percentage of damages are, in fact, damages-based agreements (“DBAs”) and enforceable only if they comply with the detailed legal regime for DBAs. T... BLOG: Purpose tests in anti-abuse or anti-avoidance provisions in the UK In addition to the general anti-abuse rule (GAAR), numerous purpose tests are built into the UK tax code. Every time a new set of tax rules is introduced, they tend to be accompanied by at least one targeted anti-avoidance rule (TAAR), and these TAARs rel... BLOG: Purpose tests in anti-abuse or anti-avoidance provisions: perspectives across Europe In order to carry out a transaction, taxpayers are generally free to choose between different structures and tax regimes, and to choose the structure or regime which produces the lowest tax burden. But their freedom is constrained by anti-abuse rules or a... BLOG: Proposals for a single R&D tax regime: a death knell for the SME regime? Last week, HM Treasury released its Summary of Responses document to the consultation published earlier this year seeking views on the design of a single research and development (R&D) tax relief regime – or, in other words, the collapsing of th... Trucks Litigation: Court of Appeal finds conflict within the RHA’s class but upholds certification On 25 July 2023, the Court of Appeal delivered its judgment regarding two connected appeals, which sought to challenge the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s (CAT’s) decision last year to grant the Road Haulage Association’s (RHA’s) app... BLOG: Beneficial ownership from a UK perspective Beneficial ownership (or beneficial entitlement) concepts are used across the UK tax code in relation to domestic provisions as well as in the application of double tax treaties. Since the Court of Appeal’s decision in Indofood in 2006, the majority view ... BLOG: Beneficial ownership: perspectives across Europe Across a number of European jurisdictions, relief from withholding tax may be denied where the recipient of a dividend, interest or royalty payment is not also the beneficial owner of the relevant payment. The test for determining whether the recipient qu... Competition & Regulatory Newsletter: Court of Justice rules in favour of Commission decision prohibiting Hutchison 3G (Three) / Telefónica (O2) merger On 13 July 2023, the European Court of Justice (CJ) handed down its judgment in Commission v CK Telecoms UK Investments Ltd, finding that the General Court (GC) had erred in its ruling annulling the European Commission’s prohibition of the proposed ... UK Enforceability of non-compete clauses The UK Government recently announced proposals to limit the duration of non-compete clauses to three months. If implemented, the UK rules will only restrict the terms of non-compete clauses included in employment and worker contracts. They would not restr... Tax and the City Review for July 2023 In their latest Tax and the City article, Mike Lane and Zoe Andrews consider two recent Court of Appeal decisions: Royal Bank of Canada on the application of the UK/Canada double tax treaty, and Civic Environmental Systems Ltd on the effect of an increase...