Norton Rose Fulbright has advised the Washington DC-based news organisation POLITICO in its entry into the European market. The team handled both US tax and European corporate and tax matters in its formation of a 50-50 joint venture to start a European version of POLITICO with German publisher, Axel Springer. The new digital political media offering should provide in-depth coverage of European politics and policy.

The venture, announced on September 9, will involve significant investments by both companies. The new media company will be headquartered in Brussels.

POLITICO is a Washington-based political news organization founded in 2007 by Publisher Robert Allbritton, President & CEO Jim VandeHei and Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris. It serves as the one-stop shop for the fastest, most in-depth coverage of the White House, Congress, politics and policy. POLITICO breaks news through its digital products, which reach seven million unique visitors a month. It also drives the conversation through its Washington newspaper, POLITICO Magazine, POLITICO Events and POLITICO Pro, its subscription-based policy news service.

Axel Springer SE was founded in 1946 by Axel Springer and aims to become the leading digital publisher. Headquartered in Berlin, the company is active in more than 40 countries with subsidiaries, joint ventures, and licenses. The company is divided into three operating segments: paid models, marketing models and classified ad models. In 2013 it achieved an EBITDA of €454.3 million. In the first half of 2014, more than half of Group revenues were generated by digital activities, their share of EBITDA amounted to nearly two-thirds of Group EBITDA.

The cross-Atlantic Norton Rose Fulbright team was led by partner Jack Allender (tax, Houston) with further assistance of partner Uwe Eppler (tax, Hamburg) as well as Zhusong Yang (tax, Houston), and Patrick Löffler (tax and corporate, Frankfurt).