The Supreme Court has recently published its decision in HMRC v Vermilion Holdings Limtied [2023] UKSC 37 providing clarity on what constitutes ‘employment related’ securities (ERS) options (and accordingly, ‘employment related’ securities) and the scope of the deeming provisions, for the purposes of the employment related securities legislation. Facts In 2006, Mr Noble, a consultant,…

November 16, 2023 Read more >

In a recent case, Ponticelli Ltd v Gallagher [2023] CSIH 32, the Court of Sessions held that an employee’s right to participate in a SIP transferred to the new employer under Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) and the transferee employer must provide a scheme of substantial equivalence for the employee to…

October 17, 2023 Read more >

On 27 July 2023, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) published the IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Taxonomy for public comment. This consultation follows the publication of the first two sustainability disclosure standards (ISSB Standards) in June 2023, namely, IFRS S1 and IFRS S2. The IFRS Sustainability Disclosure Taxonomy document proposes a common digital taxonomy for making…

September 14, 2023 Read more >

Further to its announcement in April this year, on Tuesday 18 July 2023, the Government launched its consultation, seeking views, mainly from individuals, trustees and tax practitioners on proposals for reforms on targeted taxation aspects of Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs) and Employee Benefit Trusts (EBTs). Further details can be found here. By way of an…

July 26, 2023 Read more >

Following the announcement in the Spring Budget statement, on 5 May 2023, the Government published its call for evidence on non-discretionary tax-advantaged employee share schemes, Save As You Earn (SAYE) and the Share Incentive Plan (SIP), which can be found here. The Government also published its final report on Share Scheme Evaluation – CSOP, SAYE…

June 21, 2023 Read more >

A report entitled “Annual Economic Survey of Employee Share Ownership in European Countries 2022” published by the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership (EFES) points to a decline in employee share ownership across Europe, except in the UK. EFES produces a version of this report annually. It contains a lot of data on the pattern…

April 25, 2023 Read more >

You have probably heard of the term ‘shareholder activism’. This refers to actions taken by shareholders of a company to influence the management or direction of the company. Shareholder activism can take different forms and has advantages and disadvantages. We will look at some of these in this article. Shareholders may engage directly with the…

April 21, 2023 Read more >

An annual return needs to be submitted by all companies which have an active employee share plan registered with HMRC. This includes tax-advantaged share plans such as EMI, CSOP, SAYE and SIP as well as any non-tax advantaged plans or arrangements such as unapproved options, conditional share awards (or restricted stock units), growth share plans…

April 19, 2023 Read more >

In the Spring budget 2023, the following reform to the CSOP rules and changes to the EMI rules, effective from 6 April 2023, have been announced: Reform of CSOP The CSOP rules will be reformed, as previously announced by the government on 23 September 2022, in the following manner: paragraph 6(1) of the CSOP legislation…

March 16, 2023 Read more >

For many businesses, 2023 will be the year that their current LTIP performance periods will come to an end, for others this may be the point where the LTIP looks as though it is unlikely to deliver any return at all.  For those tasked with reviewing and establishing the value (in all senses) of such…

March 15, 2023 Read more >

On 19th January 2023, HMRC published the Employment Related Securities Bulletin 47. The main contents of the Bulletin are: Changes to the ERS year-end return template Changes to the CSOP limit and share class restrictions Update of the ERS guidance Changes to the ERS year-end return template HMRC has announced that they will be making…

February 24, 2023 Read more >

Companies with Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) have typically been overlooked by Private Equity firms due to their perceived 100% employee-owned structure. However, in recent years, companies have been using more partial ESOPs. Could this be the turn of the tide for PE firms to consider these companies alongside the benefits that an ESOP provides?…

February 24, 2023 Read more >