Transaction Structuring via Luxembourg: Opportunities and Risks

13 May 2010. Pepeliaev Group in cooperation with the Embassy of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg in Russia, together with the Luxembourg company ATOZ and the international association Taxand held a conference “Alternative (Islamic) Investment in Russia: Structuring Islamic Finance via Luxembourg”.

When opening the event, Gaston Stronck, Ambassador of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg in Russia, said that “It is extremely important to develop further cooperation between Luxembourg and Russian businesses and I am pleased to see that Russian lawyers actively promote this cooperation”. Sergey Pepeliaev, Managing Partner for Pepeliaev Group, proceeded talking about cooperation and said that recently the firm has been paying special attention to international taxation issues. Mr Pepeliaev noted: “Tax planning that was acceptable only five years ago is extremely dangerous now as tax authorities pay significantly more attention to various arrangements that companies have been applying for years. The task of the lawyers that are experts in international taxation is to transfer the client’s business fr om the ‘grey’ zone to the ‘white’ one”.

After talking in brief about Luxembourg, SICAR, SIF and securitisation companies, Jamal Afakir and Jean-Michel Chamonard from ATOZ talked about the “Structuring of Investments to Middle East via Luxembourg”.
Roustam Vakhitov, Head of International Taxation Group, Pepeliaev Group, broadly covered the subject of “Luxembourg in View of the Development Trends in Russian International Taxation”.

After the end of the conference, the Embassy of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg hosted an official reception wh ere the representatives of Russian and Luxembourg companies continued communicating and discussing their cooperation in a more relaxed atmosphere.