Philip Baker QC OBE

Field Court Tax Chambers

Philip Baker QC began practice in 1987, having been a full-time lecturer in law at London University from 1979 until then. He has maintained some links with academia, and is now a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. He took silk in 2002.

He specialises primarily in international aspects of taxation, which covers both corporate and private client matters. He has a particular interest in taxation and the European Convention on Human Rights, and is the author of a book on Double Taxation Conventions. He has appeared in cases before courts and tribunals at virtually every level from the Special Commissioners (now the Tax Tribunal) to the House of Lords, Privy Council and European Court of Justice.

He is a former member of the Council of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, and remains a member of several committees of the CIOT and of the International Tax Sub-Committee of the Law Society. He is a member of the UK Committee of the International Fiscal Association and a member of the Permanent Scientific Committee of IFA.

In 1997 he was awarded an OBE for work with Chinese political refugees in the UK. In 2011 (whilst practising from his previous chambers), he was listed as being one of the 50 biggest influences in tax.

In January 2015 he gave an interview for the Journal of International Taxation on the OECD/G20 BEPS Project. To read the full interview click here

Amanda Pletz

Associate Director, NERA Economic Consulting

Amanda Pletz is an Associate Director in NERA's Global Transfer Pricing Practice based in London. She specializes in cross border issues with a focus on the financial services sector, company valuation, financial transaction valuation, and pricing. She has been involved in a range of transfer pricing studies for various financial institutions including private banking, trading, retail banking, asset management, private equity, real estate, insurance, and others.

She has also performed various pricing studies on intercompany capital structure issues, intercompany loans and guarantees, structured convertible bond offerings, and loan and company valuations. She also has experience in the valuation of oil field exploration ventures.

Ms. Pletz has performed large global financial services sector transfer pricing planning studies, the objectives of which were to realign the group's transfer pricing policies with the new business model. In addition, she has also provided numerous expert opinion reports in relation to European wide tax audits and has assisted clients with economic analysis for advance pricing agreements with local authorities.

In litigation, she has been involved in cases considering intercompany guarantees, notably with respect to the banking industry, retrospective banking business valuations, and trade analysis. Ms. Pletz also carried out economic analyses regarding the appropriateness of a project mark-up in the context of international arbitration.

Prior to joining NERA, her experience included health sector cost-benefit analysis, macroeconomic analysis and automotive segmentation modeling for a leading automotive producer, labor market supply and demand studies, and economic analysis relating to the real estate sector. In addition, Ms. Pletz was a lecturer in economics and banking for the Department of Economics, University of Pretoria as well as a seminar leader in Microeconomics for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine of the University of London.

Dr. Emmanuel Llinares

Director & Head of Global Transfer Pricing, NERA Economic Consulting

Dr. Llinares is an economist specializing in inter-company pricing, valuation, and intellectual property analyses. For a number of years, he has advised multinational companies on defining and implementing their intra-group pricing policies and has assisted them with design, documentation, and tax audit defense. Dr. Llinares also assists clients in the context of commercial or intellectual property-related litigations.

Dr. Llinares has managed scores of large intercompany pricing projects for multinationals in a wide range of industries, including transportation, energy, chemical, luxury goods, financial services, health care, real estate, media and entertainment, and food and beverage. He has also managed the economic analyses aspects of a large number of tax-related audits in Europe and other regions. He is considered by Euromoney to be one of the world's leading transfer pricing advisors.

Prior to joining NERA, Dr. Llinares was an economist with Arthur Andersen in London and with the KPMG Tax network in Paris. He is a former lecturer at the Economics Department of the University of Delaware and at the Ecole Supérieure de Gestion, a business school in Paris.

Dr. Llinares has a PhD in economics from the University of Delaware and a doctorate in economics from the University of Lyon. He publishes frequently on the subject of transfer pricing and valuation.

Jon Wingent

Investment Client Director, Close Brothers Asset Management

Jon is an experienced Investment Client Director, whose focus centres on providing regulated investment advice and prospecting clients while developing opportunities to pitch for new investment management business and maintaining existing client relationships.

Roy Saunders

Founder and Chairman, IBSA

Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1967, Roy Saunders has accumulated a wealth of commercial experience working independently in commercial property, international tax, advertising and other industries. He is the Chairman of IFS, a boutique international tax practice based in central London. Academically, he is known throughout the world for his many books and publications, the foremost being his red book, International Tax Systems & Planning Techniques published by Sweet & Maxwell. Roy has also taught an MA Course on International Taxation at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London.

Roy is very proud of the fascinating client base of entrepreneurial individuals that he has built up at IFS. He feels strongly about the role that ethical tax structuring plays in the growth of an economy, and that this needs to be better understood by the public at large. Roy founded the IBSA to enable business professionals around the world to discover new business relationships and promote best practice by creating sustainable business structures compliant with international transparency, corporate governance and social responsibility.

Bernhard Gilbey

Partner, Head of Tax Strategy & Benefits, Squire Patton Boggs

Bernhard Gilbey provides tax advice in relation to a wide range of both domestic and international corporate tax issues. This includes identifying planning opportunities for corporate and individual vendors as well as advising on the tax efficient methods of restructuring corporate groups. Bernhard regularly provides advice to clients on employee benefits schemes ranging from the advice to remuneration committees as to suitable incentive arrangements to the drafting, implementation and ongoing administration of share option and restricted stock rules.

Bernhard is a Director of the International Tax and Investment Center, member of the International Fiscal Association and a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.