White & Case, Feddersen has more than quadrupled its tax practice in the Czech Republic by hiring a team of 10 tax advisers from Andersen. The expansion will give White & Case 12 tax professionals in the Czech Republic, making it the largest department within a law firm in the country. Previously the firm had two associates practising tax.
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Ales Cechel, White & Case |
Ales Cechel joined the firm on July 1 as a partner in the Prague office and is leading the tax group. While Ernst & Young signed an agreement to acquire Andersen's Czech office, Cechel did not want to move to another accounting firm. He said: ?In the long term I see more synergies between tax advisers and lawyers than tax advisers and accountants. White & Case is the leading law firm in our region with a clear strategy to provide top quality and complex tax advisory services.?
The group considered other law firms but felt that White & Case offered the best opportunities to develop a strong tax group. The tax practice will cover a broad spectrum of areas from the taxation of financial institutions, funds, private equity, and international M&A as well as indirect and individual taxation.
Jan Matejcek, the managing partner of the Prague office of White & Case explains: ?The new group is the result of our planned strategy to link up the two mutually complementary services of legal and tax advice and ensure that we can offer top-fight capability to existing and new clients.?
White & Case had wanted to expand its tax group for over a year before hiring the Andersen team, but wanted to ensure it hired the right people. In the Czech Republic tax advice is a specialist area independent of both law and accounting, and previously the firm had been referring any tax work out to other firms, mostly Andersen, and therefore losing work.
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Michael Dlouhy, White & Case |
Michael Dlouhy, a partner in the office commented: ?We decided the best tax advisers were not lawyers and decided that the team at Andersen were the best but they wouldn't have left for a law firm before. When it became possible earlier this year we approached them through a headhunter.?
The team is bringing over many of its clients, which gives it the opportunity to do standalone tax work as well as transactional support work for the rest of the Czech practice. In the short term, the emphasis is going to be on integrating the team fully but there are further expansion plans after that.
Dlouhy added: ?We have an office in Bratislava and we would eventually like to expand to provide Slovak tax advice and possibly a regional service for countries including Poland and Germany.?
