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Adam Kobos, an energy tax specialist, has joined Troutman Sanders' office in Portland, Oregon as a partner. He was formerly with Stoel Rives.

In the July/August issue, Frank Schoeneborn, head of group operational transfer pricing in the finance and accounting division at Merck Group, took a retrapolative look at the country-by-country reporting standard five years into its implementation. In part two, he looks at how different functions within a multinational company are interacting with the tax team to manage reporting obligations.

Recent attempts at tax harmonisation have struggled to take off. In Europe enhanced cooperation measures are being invoked because of the inability to find consensus. But what fate awaits the notion of a World Tax Authority (WTA)? Would it take tax harmonisation to the next level or, like the Europe-wide language of Esperanto, is this attempt at harmonisation doomed to fail? Matthew Gilleard analyses what has motivated discussion of such a concept and looks at the barriers to implementation.

DOTAS will become increasingly important as the pendulum starts to swing the other way New proposals by the UK government to enlarge the scope of its Disclosure of Tax Avoidance Schemes (DOTAS) and VAT Avoidance Disclosure Regulations (VADR) regimes, as well as the drafting of a new financial product hallmark, will increase the number of schemes that could fall prey to controversial accelerated payment powers. The consultation document, titled 'Strengthening the Tax Avoidance Disclosure Regimes' continues the aggressive approach to tax avoidance displayed by HMRC.

Richard McAlonan is the first of four senior resignations from the Internal Revenue Service in the US to find a new home.

Ann Burgess Cammack, former senior tax counsel on the US Senate Finance Committee and tax adviser to its chairman, Max Baucus, has joined EY's Washington, DC office as a principal in the National Tax department.

Sheikh Salman Bin Hassan Al-Thani Sheikh Salman Bin Hassan Al-Thani has become chief financial and tax officer of the Qatar Financial Centre Authority (QFC Authority), the commercial and strategic arm of the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) and responsible for developing and ensuring compliance with the QFC regulations and rules comprising the QFC's legal and tax environments. Before joining the QFC Authority, Al-Thani was director of risk management at the Qatar Central Bank. He also worked in project finance for Qatar Petroleum.

Felicity Cullen Devereux Chambers expands its team of tax specialists with the arrival of Felicity Cullen QC formerly of Gray's Inn Tax Chambers. Cullen is experienced within commercial and property tax. She has also appeared in many important tax cases, including RKW Limited v Commissioners for Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs.

On July 21 the OECD released the full version of the Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters, which requires financial institutions to report detailed financial account information to their governments, which then exchange such information automatically with other jurisdictions on an annual basis. The Standard developed by the OECD in response to a mandate by the G20 was first presented to and endorsed by the G20 Finance Ministers in February 2014.

Mauricio Valenzuela