Asia Trade & Investment  

Transaction Support Profile – Country Risk Management

·        Formation of branch and negotiation of technical services agreement for directional drilling and engineering services in Malaysia. Focus on tax planning, exchange risk management and legal interface.

·        Formation of holding and subsidiary company structure in Malaysia to undertake construction activities in compliance with local participation regulations, but on sole risk basis. Focus on tax planning, legal interface and dividend control.

·        Establishment of joint operation agreement with local group to undertake directional drilling and engineering services in Indonesia. Enterprise was on sole risk basis, but needed to be legally localised. Tax planning and control of power of nominal local partner were key objectives that had to be carefully structured.

·        Establishment of onshore gas receiving facilities in collaboration with Singapore state owned enterprise. Avoidance of permanent establishment for tax purposes in Singapore was a key objective, otherwise the whole project risked being dragged onshore for tax.

·        Provision of taxation and enterprise structure advice for energy projects in Vietnam and Thailand.

·        Provision of taxation advice to consortium of oil companies for cross border gas sale agreement between Indonesia and Singapore.

·        Management of domestic company structure and branch operations interface for marine civil engineering joint venture in India. Tax planning, avoidance of punitive withholding taxes and management of exchange control regulations were key objectives.

·       Setting up of joint venture arrangements and taxation structures for marine engineering and construction project in Greece. Avoidance of double taxation and punitive withholding tax regulations were key objectives.

·        Establishment of branch operations in Turkey. Tax management and exchange loss mitigation were key objectives.

·        Management of local company structures, joint venture operations and compliance management in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, U.A.E. Sole risk and control of nominal local partner powers were key objectives.

·        Set up of local company and interface with branch operations in Saudi Arabia. Successful negotiation of £8m tax claim enabling release of contract retentions and bonds value £15m. Aggressive attitude of taxation authorities to foreign companies a key risk management issue, together with funding arrangements.

·        Establishment of branch operations and tax structuring for engineering services project in Jordan. Tax management.

·        Formation of joint venture arrangements for maintenance services to Kuwait Oil Refinery. Tax and joint venture terms were key issues

·        Negotiation of technical services agreement for provision of engineering services and equipment in Venezuela. Exchange control issues and avoidance of punitive withholding taxes were key issues.

·        Structuring tax and legal interface of onshore/offshore contracts for gas project in Argentina. Ensuring that the offshore contract was not dragged onshore for tax purposes was a key objective, together with delivering a promised price reduction to the customer through judicious tax planning.