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Type of Deal Value Acquirer Target Adviser to acquirer (tax) Adviser to target (tax) Acquisition $68 billion Pfizer Wyeth Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz T Eiko Stange Acquisition $13.9 billion MSD Capital, Stone Point Capital, JC Flowers IndyMac Federal Bank Simpson Thacher John Creed, Noah Beck Acquisition $5 billion US Treasury department GMAC Financial Services Cravath Swaine & Moore Disposal €1 billion B&C Privatstiftung Profit participation rights in B&C Holding Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Bank Austria and UniCredit) Claus Staringer, Lars Glaeser Acquisition $1.2 billion Asahi Breweries Schweppes Australia Baker & McKenzie Real estate £1.09 billion ($1.6 billion) HSBC Project Mapel II Allen & Overy Ben Eaton Disposal £750 million ($1.1 billion) Telereal Land Securities Trillium excluding Accor Hotels Slaughter and May (Land Securities Group) Richard Jeens Investment $1 billion General Motors General Motors Acceptance Corporation Weil, Gotshal & Manges Max Goodman Acquisition $775 million Autonomy Interwoven Fenwick & West Rob Schrotenboer, Timothy Fitzgibbon Acquisition €515 million ($677 million) GlaxoSmithKline UCB Slaughter and May Jeanette Zaman, Dominic Robertson, Max Mittasch Acquisition $401 million M&T Bank Corporation Provident Bankshares Corporation Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Joshua Holmes, Michael Sabbah Investment $300 million Metalmark Capital and Waud Capital Maxum Petroleum Davis, Polk & Wardwell Kathleen Ferrell, Michael Bretholz, Matthew Kohley Acquisition £115 million ($236 million) Esterline Technologies Racal Acoustics Taylor Wessing Nikol Davies Acquisition $150 million UBS AIG commodity index unit Weil, Gotshal & Manges William Horton, Andrew Gaines Investment $100 million Elevation Partners Palm Davis, Polk & Wardwell Rachel Kleinberg, M Ryan LaRosa Acquisition £52.9 million ($77.6 million) Francisco Partners Dmatek Limited Slaughter and May Sara Luder Acquisition £24.6 million ($36.5 million) GlaxoSmithKline Bristol-Myers Squibb Pakistan Slaughter and May Jeanette Zaman, Dominic Robertson, Max Mittasch Disposal Nominal sum Evening Press Ltd Majority interest in the Evening Standard newspaper from DMGT Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (DMGT) Jonathan Cooklin, Andreas Koller Disposal Undisclosed Bowburn UK residential garage doors manufacture and distribution business of Cardo Slaughter and May Gareth Miles, Ben Hammond Acquisition Undisclosed IBM Transitive Corporation Cravath Swaine & Moore Vinay Shandal, Mark Dundon Acquisition Undisclosed American Greetings Recycled Paper Greetings Weil, Gotshal & Manges Stuart Goldring, Joshua Gefland, Keith Cooper Acquisition Undisclosed Infograms Entertainment Cryptic Studios O'Melveny & Myers Robert Fisher Merger Undisclosed Morgan Stanley Global Wealth Management Citi Smith Barney Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Jodi Schwartz, T Eiko Stange, Vincent Kalafat Acquisition Undisclosed Coca-Cola Scarabeus GmbH Clifford Chance Jutta Schneider Merger Undisclosed Essent RWE Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer Hans Galavazi Acquisition Undisclosed Deutsche Bank Deutsche Postbank Hengeler Mueller Ernst-Thomas Kraft Disposal Undisclosed Standard Chartered Cazenove Asia Slaughter and May (JPMorgan Cazenove) Jeanette Zaman, Ben Hammond Type of Deal Value New entity Partners Adviser to Partners Joint Venture Undisclosed Creation of New York Block Exchange BIDS Holdings/NYSE Morgan Lewis (BIDS Holdings) Richard Zarin Promote your tax practice, send deal information to Joanna Faith; +44 207 779 8359

In recent years, companies and individuals started benefiting from the speed of the modern tax system to increase competitiveness. A huge revolution began in the last eight years resulting from the enforcement of several tax legislative improvements.

Suzanne Boers The tax treaty between the Netherlands and Mexico has been amended after the two countries signed an amending protocol on December 11 2008. The protocol needs to go through the legal authorisation procedures in both countries and is expected to come into effect on January 1 2010.

Stephen Nelson On November 6 2008, the PRC state administration of taxation (SAT) issued a circular regarding withholding tax by the PRC resident enterprises on distributing H-share dividends to overseas non-resident enterprise shareholders, Guoshuihan [2008] number 897. H-shares refer to shares of PRC companies listed on overseas stock exchanges (primarily Hong Kong). According to this circular, when a PRC resident enterprise pays dividends for the year 2008 and any subsequent year to an overseas H-share non-resident enterprise shareholder, a 10% tax must be withheld on the dividends paid. The dividend recipient can thereafter, either by itself or through an agent or through the PRC resident enterprise distributor, apply to the relevant tax authorities for any tax refunds in accordance with an applicable tax treaty, if any.

Nélio Weiss Philippe Jeffrey As discussed in a previous edition, law 11,638/2007, enacted on December 28 2007, introduced new rules to adapt Brazilian accounting practices to international accounting standards. Since then, the business community was eagerly waiting for the introduction of new provisions by the Brazilian Revenue Service, setting forth the tax implications (if any) deriving from the new Brazilian accounting standards.

Chris Chatfield of Wood Group tells Georgiana Head of his radical plans for the UK tax system if he was chancellor of the exchequer

Due to the economic crisis, governments across the EU are looking at measures to protect falling tax revenues. David Stevenson looks at how EU member states are using VAT as a way of combating budgetary shortfalls and promoting economic stimulus

Stephen Timms is the UK's tax minister. His responsibility, as financial secretary to the Treasury, for the strategic oversight of taxation is at a time when the global economy has gone wrong and corporations are looking for the greener grass of lower tax jurisdictions increases. He should not be care-free and relaxed. Does he know something we do not? Or does he have complete control over the situation? Jack Grocott finds out.

Judith Knott has replaced Diane Hay, who resigned, as the chair of the transfer pricing board at the Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs in the UK. The board was set up early in 2008 to manage the strategic direction for transfer pricing at the tax authorities. The board oversees the work of HMRC's transfer pricing and thin capitalisation specialists.

Five lawyers have become tax partners at DLA Piper. Jeroen Gobbin in Antwerp, Uwe Eppler in Hamburg, Jeffrey Korenblatt in Washington, DC. Paul Rutherford in London and Trina Oettinger in East Palo Alto are the new members of the partnership.