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The tax department of Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs is led by Bernard du Plessis in Johannesburg and Peter Dachs in Cape Town. The group has lost two partners since last year and now has 15 partners and 24 other fee earners. Though it offers clients a full ... [more]

The tax department of Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs is led by Bernard du Plessis in Johannesburg and Peter Dachs in Cape Town. The group has lost two partners since last year and now has 15 partners and 24 other fee earners. Though it offers clients a full range of tax services, cross-border structuring and restructuring and tax controversy have been areas of particular activity for the firm this year. The firm's clients comprise multinationals, financial institutions and South African companies, including Credit Suisse, Absa Capital, Old Mutual, South African Breweries and Fifa. This year, their work has included advising Credit Suisse on the restructuring of an issue of preference shares. To ensure that the dividends from the shares were tax exempt, the proceeds had to remain in South Africa. As such, the firm had to establish a structure to ensure the money was invested in South Africa and could subsequently be passed to foreign shareholders free of tax. Du Plessis also handled the restructuring of LifeHealthcare, a joint venture between Brimstone Investment and Mvelephanda Holdings. This was necessary to ensure that both parties could exit the joint venture without incurring any unnecessary tax liability. The firm expects its flow of cross-border work to remain high in the coming year as investment into Africa via South Africa picks up. The firm is beginning to see a lot of investment from Asia in this manner.