The Danish Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Ekspres Bank A/S that processing services supplied by an English company are not subject to VAT, as the services are covered by the VAT exemptions for payments and transfers. Plesner represented the bank.

Like many other financial institutions in Denmark, Ekspres Bank does not own a data processing system for the management of credit, account entries, registration of incoming and outgoing payments, and collection of payments. Therefore, Ekspres Bank purchases data processing services from the external supplier FIS Certegy.

Eversheds acted as legal advisor for Irish Fintrax Group as the company acquired the shares of Finnish e-Taxfree Nordic Ltd.

Established in 2013, e-Taxfree Nordic is a Finnish company which offers the market’s most advanced digital solutions for making tax-free purchases. The service enables paperless processing and obtaining of VAT refunds. As a result of the acquisition, e-Taxfree Nordic’s electronic tax refund service will expand to other countries.

Allen & Overy LLP advised the initial purchasers on the offering of U.S.$6.0 billion aggregate principal amount of U.S. dollar denominated bonds by Siemens Financieringsmaatschappij N.V.

The bonds are guaranteed by Siemens Aktiengesellschaft.

The company issued six tranches of bonds with maturities of three, five, seven, ten and 30 years. In the three-year category, Siemens issued a series of floating rate and a series of fixed rate notes. The other series are fixed rate notes.

International law firm Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW“) advised Banca Popolare di Milano S.c. a r.l. (“BPM”) on the €15m financing to Redwood, a real estate investment fund entirely subscribed by real estate company Aedes SIIQ S.p.A. and managed by asset management company Castello SGR S.p.A., in order to cover cash flow needs and finance restructuring costs related to a building complex located in Italy.

Based in Milan, BPM is Italy’s second largest co-operative bank.

Allen & Overy LLP has advised Deutsche Beteiligungs AG on its capital increase raising gross proceeds of approximately EUR 38.6 million.

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advised the managers in relation to the Province of British Columbia’s syndicated issue of INR 5bn notes under its Euro Note Issuance Programme.

This marks the Province’s inaugural issue of synthetic Indian Rupee-denominated bonds payable in US dollars (known as “Masala” bonds) and the first such issue by a foreign government. The 6.60 per cent notes, payable in US. dollars, are due on January 9, 2020.

Peter Noble, partner, Norton Rose Fulbright, comments:

Vinge has advised KCG Holdings, Inc. on its acquisition of Neonet Securities AB from inter alios Hay Tor Capital LLP, KAS Bank N.V., Nordic Capital / Cidron Delphi Intressenter AB and Neonet management. Neonet is a Swedish independent capital markets services provider offering a comprehensive suite of advanced algorithmic trading, smart order routing and sales. KCG is a leading independent securities firm offering investors a range of services designed to address trading needs across asset classes, product types and time zones.

Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright has advised ASX-listed company Thorn Group Limited on its sale of receivables management company National Credit Management Limited (NCML) to Australian debt collector Credit Corp for $22.6 million.

NCML operates in Australia and New Zealand as a diversified receivables management business with a focus on debt purchasing and agency collection. The sale to Credit Corp includes a purchased debt ledger (PDL) book with a carrying value of more than $20 million, 90 staff and 120 client agency agreements.

Eversheds was delighted to assist Fintrax Group Holdings Limited on its acquisition of e-Taxfree Nordic Oy, a Finnish incorporated company which has developed cutting edge services/products relating to paperless tax refund in the Finnish and neighbouring markets.

King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has advised Hills Limited on the proposed merger of its Hills Health Solutions business with Lincor, Inc. to form Lincor Limited, a newly incorporated company which will be demerged from Hills Limited and listed on the ASX.

Lincor Limited will be a leading global provider of patient engagement technology solutions with strong recurring revenues and a growing Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.