SKANDIA

The Swedish Supreme Court’s recent referral of Danske Bank to the CJEU reopens the Skandia debate on how the VAT grouping rules should apply in complex cross-border scenarios across the EU, as Mark Agnew and Philippe Gamito (Baker McKenzie) explain.

HMRC’s guidance on Skandia is a useful starting point, but still leaves considerable uncertainty on one of the highest profile VAT developments for the financial services industry in recent years, write Gary Campbell and Daniel Johnson (Deloitte).

Mark Agnew and Arianne Wijdeveld (Baker & McKenzie) consider the impact that the Skandia decision will have for financial services groups in the UK.

In this month’s briefing, Lee Squires and Fiona Bantock (Hogan Lovells) examine four recent and highly relevant VAT cases: Skandia America, GMAC, Bookit and Taylor Clark. 

The CJEU has held that reverse charge VAT is due where an overseas entity recharges costs to a branch registered within a VAT group, in a decision that sits uncomfortably with the principle in FCE Bank. Nick Skerrett and Gary Barnett (Simmons & Simmons) consider the implications.