RRP Advogados acts for Secil in ECJ tax case

Lisbon law firm RRP Advogados represented cement company Secil before the European Court of Justice in its victorious tax case relating to inbound dividends paid by non-EU companies.

The court ruled that no tax should be levied in Portugal on dividends distributed to a Portuguese parent company by its non-EU subsidiaries. Previously, such dividends were fully taxed in Portugal, where no mechanism to eliminate or mitigate economic double taxation has been in place.

Secil claimed the refusal to apply the rules eliminating economic double taxation failed to respect the EC-Tunisia Agreement, the EC-Lebanon Agreement, and Articles 49 and 63 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

Portugal must now grant Secil at least a partial tax deduction for dividends received from its non-EU subsidiaries.

The RRP Advogados team was led by Ricardo Reigada Pereira. RRP Advogados, which is affiliated to the EY Global Law network, was founded earlier this year by Reigada Pereira, formerly an associate at Linklaters.