UK

Grant Thornton

30 Finsbury Square

London EC2P 2YU

UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7728 3195

LinkedIn: uk.linkedin.com/in/roopaaitken

Email: roopa.aitken@uk.gt.com

Website: www.grant-thornton.co.uk

Roopa Aitken is a corporate tax partner at Grant Thornton UK with significant experience of advising multinational groups on a wide range of tax matters.

Roopa has had more than 19 years of experience advising a range of business types and sizes on tax matters. She specialises in EU claims and related tax issues and has advised many clients on the compatibility of UK law with EU law. Most recently she successfully advised in the Philips Electronics case which was heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Roopa's wider tax team and colleagues provide advice concerning all tax matters including indirect taxes and private client in addition to corporate tax, thereby ensuring that all aspects of her clients' tax affairs are catered for.

Many of the matters which Roopa advises on have cross-border implications affecting a client's business in numerous jurisdictions. Roopa is able to draw upon the expertise and experience of colleagues in the Grant Thornton International teams from around the world to deliver seamless advice.

Roopa works closely with her specialist colleagues across all of Grant Thornton's service lines to ensure her clients have access to the full breadth of advice and counsel available to support their businesses' developments and wider growth aspirations.

Roopa is a regular presenter at tax conferences and has published numerous technical articles on tax issues. She is on the UK branch committee of the International Fiscal Association and the team has a strong reputation in the market, winning 'Best International Tax Team' at the 2012 Lexis Nexis awards and 'Best Team in a National Practice' at the Taxation awards 2014

Osborne Clarke

2 Temple Back East

Temple Quay

Bristol BS1 6EG

DX 7818 Bristol

UK

Tel: + 44 (0) 117 917 3628

Fax: + 44 (0) 117 917 3629

Mobile: + 44 (0) 7753 832 328

Email: karen.cooper@osborneclarke.com

Website: www.osborneclarke.com

Karen is a partner in Osborne Clarke's tax department and leads the firm's employee benefits practice. She has more than 20 years' experience advising a broad range of clients on the design, implementation and communication of the full range of employee benefits and share schemes.

Karen works for a diverse range of clients from owner managed businesses through to global multinationals. She is renowned for her ability to devise commercially effective remuneration strategies to incentivise and motivate key individuals within an organisation. She also advises clients and their internationally mobile employees on tax efficient remuneration packages.

Karen acts on a broad range of corporate transactions and advises remuneration committees in relation to all-employee and senior executive equity schemes.

Karen qualified as a lawyer in 1995 and joined Osborne Clarke as a partner in 2001. She is ranked as a leading individual by the legal directories for her work on employee benefits.

Karen is an active member of the Share Plan Lawyers Organisation, and is a member of the Share Schemes Committee for the Quoted Companies Alliance. She is the author of the directors' remuneration chapter of Sweet & Maxwell's A Practical Guide to Corporate Governance and the share schemes chapter in Jordan's Company Administrations. She writes for key tax publications and is a regular speaker at industry conferences.

She holds a BA in jurisprudence from Oxford University.

Clifford Chance

10 Upper Bank Street

London E14 5JJ

UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7006 2044

Email: liesl.fichardt@cliffordchance.com

Website: www.cliffordchance.com

Liesl Fichardt leads Clifford Chance's contentious tax practice and is one of the UK's leading tax disputes practitioners. She has extensive experience in tax litigation, negotiations with revenue authorities and settlement of disputes. She possesses considerable court and tribunal experience including conducting cases in the Tax Tribunal, the courts of appeal and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Liesl practiced as a tax barrister for 13 years and previously acted as a judge in the High Court of South Africa. She is chairperson of the British Branch of the International Fiscal Association. She is recognised in leading legal directories including International Tax Review's Tax Controversy Leaders Guide for her outstanding success and for consistent positive feedback from clients and peers.

Liesl leads arguably the most experienced group of partners who deal with tax investigations, litigation and dispute resolution. The combination of local expertise and global network allows Clifford Chance to handle complex disputes effectively and efficiently, whether in the UK or any other jurisdiction. Clifford Chance advises multinationals, financial institutions, corporates and high net worth individuals on a number of tax and VAT matters covering the entire range of tax dispute resolution including:

• Prevention related advice, risk assessments and risk management;

• Tax audits and tax raids;

• Tax compliance related advice;

• Investigations (both civil and criminal);

• Negotiation and drafting of settlements with tax authorities;

• Cross-border disclosure requests from tax authorities;

• Tax litigation before national and international courts, specialist tax tribunals, the courts of appeal and the Court of Justice of the European Union;

• Parliamentary, European Commission and similar investigations;

• Lobbying revenue authorities on the formulation of tax legislation and guidelines; and

• Enforcement proceedings.

Osborne Clarke

2 Temple Back East

Bristol BS1 6EG

UK

Tel: +44 (0)117 917 4260

Fax: +44 (0)117 917 4261

Email: jupe@osborneclarke.com

Website: www.osborneclarke.com

Erika Jupe is a partner in Osborne Clarke's corporate tax practice and heads the international tax practice group. She is also a member of Osborne Clarke's international council. She has more than 20 years' experience advising both UK and multinational clients on a broad range of tax issues.

Her work includes both standalone tax consultancy work as well advising on a broad range of transactions including mergers and acquisitions, financings, joint ventures and restructurings. Her practice covers cross-border tax issues, partnerships, value added tax and international employee tax issues.

Erika advises clients across a broad range of sectors and represents many of the firm's biggest corporate clients on their transactions, with a particular emphasis on life science companies and representing investment funds on formation, investment and restructuring activity.

She works with many international clients of the firm, often representing overseas companies investing in the UK and Europe, or acting for European clients investing further afield. In such cases, she works closely with lawyers in Osborne Clarke's international offices.

Erika qualified as a lawyer in 1990 and joined Osborne Clarke in 1997, becoming a partner a year later. She is a member of the UK branch committee of the International Fiscal Association and is a frequent speaker on tax developments and contributor to tax publications. She is the author of the chapter on e-commerce in Tolley's Tax Planning.

Erika is ranked in the UK legal directories as a leading individual on corporate tax matters.

Grant Thornton

Melton Street, Euston Square

London NW1 2EP

UK

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7728 3454

Email: francesca.lagerberg@gti.gt.com

Website: www.grantthornton.global

Francesca Lagerberg is the global leader for tax services at Grant Thornton International, the sixth largest global accounting organisation with $4.7 billion in revenues and operations in 130 countries. Additionally, Francesca also serves as a member of the Grant Thornton global leadership team and is responsible for Grant Thornton European member firms and global legal issues. She is the only woman running a global tax practice among the six largest global accounting organisations.

Before seconding to Grant Thornton International in 2013, Francesca was the head of tax for the Grant Thornton UK member firm. She has worked in tax for more than 20 years and her main focus today is helping the Grant Thornton network grow its tax practices and attract, retain and develop talent in the whole network by encouraging a consistent and inspiring culture in which people can thrive.

Under Francesca, Grant Thornton has taken global leadership positions on a number of tax issues important to business, including most recently, global transfer pricing. In her thought leadership role, she is a regular commentator on radio and TV and in print, having appeared in numerous major press outlets including the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg TV and BBC-TV.

She is actively involved in lobbying for better, clearer and more proportionate tax legislation around the globe. She spoke recently on improving the relationship between tax intermediaries and revenue authorities at the annual conference of the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrators. She also is on the UK's Tax Professionals Forum, chaired by the UK's financial secretary, the role of which is to oversee the implementation of the government's commitment to reforming the framework for developing tax policy and making tax law.

Francesca is a past chairman of the Tax Faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales (ICAEW) and is a past council member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT). She is a fellow of the ICAEW and the CIOT, and is a qualified barrister and coach. She has written and edited many tax publications and has won awards for lecturing in tax and for her role in private client tax work.

Francesca leads on women in business issues for Grant Thornton including this year's research on the path to leadership and is engaged in promoting the commercial case for more diversity at the senior and board level in business.

Grant Thornton

Grant Thornton House

Melton Street

Euston Square

London NW1 2EP

UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7383 5100

Fax: +44 (0)20 7383 4715

Email: wendy.nicholls@uk.gt.com

Website: www.grant-thornton.co.uk

Wendy has more than 25 years' international experience advising clients in the UK and overseas and is a member of the Grant Thornton members firms' Global Transfer Pricing Leadership team and is acknowledged in the Euromoney/Legal Media Group Guide to the World's Leading Transfer Pricing Advisers and the Guide to the World's Leading Women in Business Law. She sits on the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) to the OECD and the Joint Transfer Pricing Forum which consists of government, tax authority and business representatives, and has the remit to help solve practical transfer pricing issues within the EU.

Wendy works with businesses across many industries, specialising in those where intellectual property is important. Her work encompasses transfer pricing documentation (master file and country file) as well as planning for international expansion and growth, and dealing with the resolution of disputes. She also helps businesses navigate the changes arising from the G20/OECD project on base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS).

Pinsent Masons

30 Crown Place

Earl Street

London EC2A 4ES

UK

Tel: +44 (0)161 662 8066

Email: heather.self@pinsentmasons.com

Website: www.pinsentmasons.com

Heather Self is a partner (non-lawyer) in international law firm Pinsent Masons' market-leading tax disputes practice. With more than 30 years' experience in tax, she has been an in-house tax director and a senior adviser at HMRC and is part of a multidisciplinary team advising on a wide range of corporate tax disputes.

Heather's in-house experience was as group tax director at Scottish Power, which at the time was a FTSE 100 energy company. She had responsibility for all tax matters and advised on numerous corporate transactions, including the $5 billion disposal of the regulated US energy business. At HMRC, she worked on complex disputes with FTSE 100 companies, and was a specialist adviser to the utilities sector, where she was involved in policy issues on energy generation and renewables.

Her current practice is focused on the large corporate market, where she advises companies on technical issues and dispute resolution. Clients have said that the combination of her experience has meant that she can "see things from all sides" and is able to give insights into the behaviour of HMRC as an organisation, as well as praising her client engagement.

Heather is a frequent speaker and commentator on tax in print and broadcast media, and regularly appears on programmes such as BBC Breakfast, Wake up to Money and the Today programme. She is a member of the CBI Tax Committee and a CEDR accredited mediator. She also tweets as @hselftax.