Tax executives and practitioners attended the awards dinner and presentation, which recognised the most outstanding provision of tax services in North and South America between June 2011 and June 2012. In-house teams were not left out. Four awards were presented to company tax departments for the matters in which they instructed tax advisers. Delphi Automotive won the award for North America in-house tax team of the the year for direct tax. Iroko Pharmaceuticals was the winner of the same award for indirect tax groups.
The Americas tax firm of the year, for the practice with the best strength in depth in its international tax services, was Ernst & Young. The Latin America tax firm of the year was PwC and the equivalent award in North America went to Davis Polk & Wardwell. Deloitte, with eight wins, was the most successful firm during the presentation. They were followed by Mayer Brown with seven, PwC and the Taxand network with five each and Ernst & Young with four.
Other multiple winners included Baker & McKenzie; Blake, Cassels & Graydon from Canada; DLA Piper; the new firm of Teijeiro & Ballone in Argentina and Guyer & Regules in Uruguay.
Thirty two different firms won awards, which were presented for outstanding achievement in tax, tax disputes and transfer pricing in nine South American countries, Canada, Puerto Rico and six US cities. Regional awards were also given out for each of these practice areas and indirect tax. The best tax teams for sectors such as banking, private equity and media & entertainment were also honoured.
For the first time this year, service providers competed to be Americas Tax Innovator of the Year and this prize went to Thomson Reuters for its ONESOURCE tax automation platform.
The Americas ceremony is one of two awards presentations that International Tax Review organises annually. The European Tax Awards are presented in London each May.
Methodology
In July and August 2012, International Tax Review asked law firms and tax advisory firms to submit examples of their best work from June 2011 to June 2012 in M&A and capital markets tax transactions, tax disputes, indirect tax, restructuring and transfer pricing. Additional awards for the best tax teams in energy, media and entertainment, banking and private equity, as well as the international tax law firm of the year and the tax policy firm of the year awards were judged from these submissions.
In-house teams also had the opportunity to make their own submission. Where they did not, the selection of the shortlists and winners of the in-house awards was based on the information in the private-practice submissions.
International Tax Review’s editorial staff considered these submissions and the information obtained through interviews with tax directors, as well as peer interviews, for World Tax 2013, its directory of leading firms and individuals, to compile shortlists and choose winners for each of the country and regional awards.
