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Blake, Cassels & Graydon has promoted John Leopardi, Paul Stepak and Kevin Zimka to the firm's partnership.

Sophie Jouniaux of Baker & McKenzie, welcomes reform but sees problems ahead

Nélio Weiss Philippe Jeffrey For a third consecutive year and with the objective to minimise the effect for Brazilian exporting companies from the appreciation of the local currency in relation to foreign currencies (more specifically the US dollar and the Euro), the Brazilian authorities issued on December 28 2007, ordinance 329 and normative instruction 801 which amended the Brazilian transfer pricing legislation. As per the ordinance and normative instruction, Brazilian exporting companies will be allowed to increase their export revenues for calendar year 2007 (for transfer pricing calculation purposes) using the ratio of 1.28. This measure will apply for the fiscal year 2007. As mentioned, a similar measure was also adopted for fiscal years 2005 and 2006, allowing the Brazilian exporting companies to increase their export revenues using then a ratio of 1.35 and 1.29 respectively.

A high quality of life and lively social scene are some of the features that attract people to Ireland. When it comes to multinational firms, the government's favourable tax treatment also plays a role. Liam Diamond of PricewaterhouseCoopers explains

Ireland faces strong competition from Luxembourg, the Netherlands and other jurisdictions. But it is holding its own, say Conor Hurley and Ailish Finnerty of Arthur Cox

Conor Hynes of Deloitte explains why Ireland will keep its appeal for international finance

One year after the introduction of the Belgian Pan-European Pension Fund (OFP), the Belgian regulator has created a flexible framework for asset pooling by qualified investors, such as pension funds. A royal decree of December 7 2007 sets out the rules for Belgian institutional undertakings for collective investment with a variable number of shares/units.

Alain Charlet Nathalie Martin-Queulin On December 20 2001 the European Council adopted directive 2001/115/EC with a view to simplifying and harmonising the invoicing requirements in all member states. Member states had to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this directive with effect from January 1 2004 and France did so as from July 1 2003. Article 2 of this directive provided however that member states may release taxable persons from the obligation to issue an invoice in respect of goods or services which are exempt from VAT. Some member states chose to relieve businesses from issuing invoices with respect to banking and financial services which are traditionally VAT exempt. France did not.

The Finance Bill 2008 was published on January 31. Some of the more salient provisions introduced by the Bill are:

Laurent Grençon Mireille Rodius Recent pieces of legislation introduce a number of changes to the Luxembourg VAT law. The main changes are summarised hereafter.