Four tax lawyers left Gardere Wynne Sewell and moved their specialized tax practice this month to McDermott Will & Emery.
Mark R. Martin (pictured), a partner in Houston who is now head of McDermott’s transfer pricing practice, says his group joined McDermott because of its network of international offices and large tax practice.
Martin says transfer pricing is a “big emerging area” for the Internal Revenue Service. It calls for allocating income and expenses between companies and subsidiaries located in other countries to ensure the proper taxes are paid, he says.
“The transactions are between related parties, for example, a U.S. parent company and its subsidiary in Japan,” he says.
Martin, partner John T. Woodruff and associate Mark Horowitz joined McDermott in Houston, while partner Cym H. Lowell, who writes thrillers on the side, will work out of a satellite office in Dallas.
Martin says he and Lowell joined McDermott on June 1, and the other lawyers, along with three tax professionals who will also work in Dallas, moved over in the weeks before the firm announced the hires on June 19.
Martin declines to identify clients the group brought to McDermott but says they include a number of multinational companies involved in the energy, chemical and engineering industries. He says Lowell represents a large number of Japanese companies.
Steven Spears, partner in charge of the Houston office, says the new lawyers have a “very exciting practice in an area where they are the pre-eminent people in the country.” He says the Dallas satellite office is being treated as a part of the Houston office.
Stephen Good, managing partner of Gardere says, “We wish them the best of luck.”
— Brenda Sapino Jeffreys
More lawyers serving as enablers for companies who do not want to pay their domestic taxes, leaving the US taxpayer holding the bag!
Posted by: Java Master | June 21, 2012 at 01:45 PM