A look back at the most read stories on eprivateclient this week...
Monday
Monday saw the publication of the 2023 eprivateclient Top Family Law Firms – a detailed guide to the leading law firms providing family law advice in the UK. The Top Family Law Firm rankings are a part of a series of rankings published annually by eprivateclient. So far, 2023 has seen the publication of the 2023 Top Accountancy Firms, with the 2023 Top Offshore Law Firms, 2023 Top Private Client Law Firms and 2023 Top Trust Companies revealed over the coming weeks. Similar to last year’s rankings, readers can see who are the top firms in both the boutique and full-service brackets but it also allows eprivateclient to further grow the number of firms featured, with 70 firms featuring in 2023, up from 68 last year.
Fiduciary services provider Oak Group appointed Kim Sgarlata as group chief executive. Ms Sgarlata joined Oak Group from HSBC where she worked for almost four years and was recently global head of wholesale transformation. Prior to that she held the role of global head of strategic programme development, commercial banking at the bank. Before HSBC, Ms Sgarlata spent almost a decade at Capco, including over three years as a partner. She also worked at Accenture for six years. [Read more]
Tuesday
As part of its 2024 Budget – as presented by Minister of Finance, Michael McGrath, last week – Ireland is set to introduce capital gains tax (CGT) relief for angel investors and implement new EU minimum tax rates for corporations. This followed a year in which Ireland received EUR22 billion in corporate tax revenue, representing a more than five-fold increase since 2014 in which corporate tax revenue was EUR4 billion. [Read more]
RWK Goodman hired Rebecca Gillard who hs joined the UK law firm's residential property, farms and estates team as a senior associate. Based in the firm's Bath office, Ms Gillard, who joined from Trethowans, has spent the last nine years specialising in agricultural property.
Wednesday
Global investor services provider IQ-EQ appointed Paul Griffith as its first chief commercial officer for Ireland. Mr Griffith will manage the regional sales team in Ireland whilst working alongside senior regional and international stakeholders in the organisation to further IQ-EQ’s strategic objectives. With 16 years of experience in the financial services industry he previously served as a commercial director in London at Intertrust Group having also held business development roles based in Dublin, Ireland with the firm.
The number of watches recorded as lost or stolen grew by 60 percent in 2022, with 6,815 new entries, according to research from The Watch Register, a database with 80,000 watches marked as stolen or missing. The global database last year thwarted the illegal trade of £3 million in lost, stolen or counterfeit watches. During 2022, 75 percent of all watch recoveries directly benefited insurers, with a total value of £1 million. [Read more]
Thursday
The EU Council added Antigua and Barbuda, Belize and Seychelles to its list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions.
Meanwhile, The British Virgin Islands, Costa Rica and Marshall Islands were removed from the list. Antigua and Barbuda, Belize and Seychelles were added to the list as they did not exchange requested tax information with the EU. The BVI was moved to Annex II as it awaits OECD assessment on its amended exchange of information framework. [Read more]
UK law firm Thrings strengthened its private client team with the appointment of a new partner in its Lydney, Gloucestershire, office. Succession and tax specialist Ben Coulson has joined the firm from Shakespeare Martineau, bringing 10 years of experience in all areas of private client law from UK tax matters to personal estate planning affairs.
Friday
European law firm Fieldfisher added Caroline Rao as a director. Ms Rao has joined the firm from Harbottle & Lewis where she was a senior associate. Ms Rao spent over six years at Harbottle & Lewis and advises on international succession planning, family governance, asset protection, philanthropy and tax planning for the protection of wealth for international private clients and their professional advisers. [Read more]
Delays due to issues with online court services have undermined access to justice, research by the Law Society of England and Wales found. The research received responses from 722 solicitors who used the damage claims, public family law and probate portals between June and July 2023. Focusing on impacts on solicitors, clients and the civil justice system in England and Wales, the surveys included questions on the digitisation of services within the court system and the effectiveness of changes made over the last year.