Shortlists for European Tax Awards 2012 announced

A total of 82 firms have earned nominations for the 70 awards for which they are eligible. They will be presented at a dinner at the Dorchester hotel in London on May 16.

Aside from the awards for tax law and accounting firms, the ceremony will throw the spotlight once again on in-house tax departments, with two extra awards, for direct and indirect, going to the corporate teams that created the biggest impact in 2011. In spite of a feeble transactional market, some well-known companies still undertook some highly detailed tax work last year.

Tax innovation also gets recognition this year with a new award. While it is aimed at the growing number of technology companies serving the tax market, the award’s nominees show that advisers and law firms were also active last year in coming up devices and processes to help tax executives to become more efficient.

Twelve firms have been shortlisted for the most prestigious award of the night, European Tax Firm of the Year. These comprise the big-four professional services firms of Ernst & Young, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC; the global Taxand network and the law firms of Baker & McKenzie, DLA Piper, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which won the award last year, Hogan Lovells, Koutalidis from Greece, Latham & Watkins and Linklaters.

Deloitte is the firm with the most number of nominations for the awards. It has 55 and is followed by Ernst & Young with 41, Taxand with 29, PwC, 26, Baker & McKenzie on 22 and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and KPMG, both on 17.

The awards are in their seventh year and will be presented at the Dorchester hotel in London on May 16. The winners and runners-up will also be featured in the June issue of the magazine and on International Tax Review.

Click here to find the full list of nominees.

Methodology

In January and February 2012, firms in 26 European areas and jurisdictions, and South Africa –

Austria, Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), Belgium, Central Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Slovenia and Romania), Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and UK –

were invited to submit three examples of their best work from January 1 2011 to December 31 2011 period. The submissions were eligible for consideration for the two awards (tax and transfer pricing) in each of the countries, as well as for the 19 pan-European awards.

International Tax Review editorial staff compiled shortlists and chose winners for each award based on the submissions and further research, which included interviews with practitioners and tax executives from companies around Europe. These opinions about who should win were influential but not final.

The awards were judged according to:

· Size (Not conclusive, though it does indicate what a tax team is capable of taking on)

· Innovation (Did the solution the adviser employ show something more than the straightforward answer that is commonly used?)

· Complexity (Did the matter address tax issues that were out of the ordinary? What ingenuity did the adviser show to solve them?)

For details of how to attend the awards ceremony, please contact Andrew Tappin at atappin@euromoneyplc.com or +44 207 779 8661.

Click here to find the full list of nominees.

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