David Pickstone to lead new tax litigation practice at Stewarts Law

Stewarts Law, the UK’s largest litigation only law firm, has launched a new tax litigation practice with the hire of David Pickstone, He joins as a Partner and Head of Tax Litigation.

David, who previously worked at PwC Legal, has significant experience of acting for large corporates, financial institutions and high net worth individuals in tax disputes before the Tax Tribunals, High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme and European Courts.

David has worked on many of the most important recent tax cases, including having conduct of the Prudential privilege litigation from the High Court through to the Supreme Court, acting for Littlewoods Retail Ltd in their claim for compound interest on overpayments of VAT and acting as the solicitor with conduct for the Stamp Taxes Group Litigation Order.

Stewarts Law’s Managing Partner, John Cahill, comments: “We are committed to recruiting the very best lawyers to meet the needs of our clients. The current economic climate has resulted in a large volume of high value tax cases. David, with his particular expertise in direct tax claims, is very well placed to take on such disputes.”

David comments: “Stewarts Law already has an excellent reputation for complex domestic and international disputes. The addition of a new tax litigation department will cement its position in the market place as a leading litigation only law firm. I am delighted to be joining.”

David’s relevant experience includes:

• Acting before the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court for Prudential Plc in their judicial review challenge against HMRC in which they claimed that legal advice given by accountants was subject to legal professional privilege.
• Acting for a group of taxpayers in a Group Litigation Order challenging the charge to Stamp Duty and Stamp Duty Reserve Tax levied on the issue or transfer of shares into a clearance service or depository receipt systems.
• Acting for several corporate groups in claims against HMRC for recovery of overpaid Schedule D, Case V corporation tax and Advanced Corporation Tax (‘ACT’) in claims which fall into the FII and CFC & Dividend GLOs.
• Acting for the Littlewoods group at the High Court stage of their ground-breaking claim for compound interest on overpayments of VAT.
• Acting for the States of Jersey in their judicial review challenge against UK primary legislation which sought to withdraw Low Value Consignment Relief, the relief on import VAT which enabled businesses based in the Channel Islands to import low value goods into the UK free from import VAT.
• Acting for Messrs Davies and James in their judicial review challenge against HMRC’s determination of ordinary residence. The challenge revolved around the extent to which HMRC were bound to treat the claimants as non-resident under their guidance document ‘IR20’.
• Acting for various client groups in relation to historic claims for recovery of unutilised ACT and for full restitution of the benefit to HMRC of having received advanced payments of tax in breach of EU law.
• Acting for several major UK landfill site operators in a series of disputes with their customers as to which party is entitled to retain landfill tax which had been refunded by HMRC.