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The OECD's Centre for Tax Policy and Administration has appointed Piet Battiau as its head of the Consumption Taxes Unit.

Bruce Meyer has been named partner with Ernst and Young's National Tax Department's international tax services practice in San Francisco. Meyer returns to Ernst & Young from 18 years at KPMG.

Clayton Utz has strengthened its tax team with the appointment of Kulwant Singh-Pangly as special counsel.

Ian Farmer On February17 2011, the Australian government released exposure draft legislation relating to the controlled foreign company (CFC) and proposed foreign accumulation fund (FAF) rules. These draft rules seek to improve the competitiveness of Australian companies with offshore operations and encourage foreign groups to establish regional headquarters in Australia.

Charles River Associates (CRA) has appointed a new vice president in its transfer pricing division. Peter Guang Chen is now based in the New York office.

Bob van der Made At the Eurozone summit at the beginning of February 2011, Germany and France presented a six point plan dubbed as Pact for Competitiveness for the Eurozone, in which both countries announce that they are prepared to take further, resolute steps aimed at long-lasting increase of the competitiveness of the Eurozone states involved to achieve a stronger economic convergence, including fresh plans to harmonise tax and labour policies in the zone. Germany and France stated that the recent financial and economic crisis had exposed the necessity to complete monetary union with an economic union.

Chinapat Visuttipat In Thailand, there is no specific anti-avoidance rule to prevent bad faith tax avoidance. Borderline of tax planning, tax avoidance and tax evasion is unclear while the Thai Revenue Code (TRC) provides the general anti-avoidance mechanism in various parts of the TRC. However, it is a problematic under the rule of law to empower the government authorities to attack the tax avoidance without breach of constitution.

Jean-Luc Pierre Richard Juan The French Finance Act for 2011 presents significant opportunities for companies involved in the manufacturing of products containing patented or patentable technologies. The new provisions, effective from January 1 2011, enable those companies which own technologies and incorporate these into goods which are manufactured in France to benefit from a reduced effective rate of tax.

Protests, media campaigns and politics are all forcing corporations to reconsider their corporate reputations. Sophie Ashley analyses the transfer pricing aspects of corporate reputation while Salman Shaheen investigates the best way to handle the negative attention. Both discover that financial clarity is the best form of attack.

The introduction of a banking tax has dominated political and economic agendas for a long time. Vincent Oratore of Ernst & Young highlights the key policy areas that need to be addressed before the banking sector can be happy with the new levy.