The Legal 500

Peter Maher heads A&L Goodbody’s ‘business-focused and pragmatic’ tax team, which also includes the highly rated Paul Fahy. It advised Elan on tax aspects of the $960m merger of Elan Drug Technologies with Alkermes, and Waha Capital on its acquisition of a 20% stake in Aercap and restructuring of its existing 50% joint venture.

Arthur Cox’s ‘professional’ and ‘efficient’ team advised Warner Chilcott on a dividend recapitalisation, and Seagate Technology on its strategic alliance with Samsung Electronics. Practice head Conor Hurley is recommended along with Caroline Devlin, Jonathan Sheehan and the ‘superb’ Fintan Clancy.

Matheson Ormsby Prentice’s ‘top-notch team’ tax team is the largest in Ireland, and in Turlough Galvin it has one of the leading tax lawyers. Anthony Walsh, Shane Hogan and John Kelly are also recommended. The firm acted on a complex tax deal that saw Credit Suisse acquire the Prime Fund Solutions global fund administration and banking business of ABN AMRO.

William Fry’s tax head Martin Phelan advised HMV on designing and implementing a number of IP migrations for UK and US listed companies, one of the few Irish firms to handle this type of work. It also advised Fairfax Financial Holdings and WL Ross on tax aspects of the acquisition of a 34.9% stake in Bank of Ireland. Anthony Smyth joined Walkers.

Dillon Eustace sees a good flow of work from its hedge fund clients moving tax residence to Ireland. It also acted for Gazprombank on tax structuring of standalone Irish SPVs. Practice head David Lawless is recommended.

Mason Hayes & Curran is ‘building clear critical mass’ in the tax space under highly rated practice head John Gulliver. The team acted for Liberty Mutual on its acquisition of Quinn to allow the assets to move across VAT free. BNP Paribas is also a client.

McCann FitzGerald acted for Allied Irish Banks as tax counsel on the sale of its $2bn shareholding in M&T Bank. Avocent International and EBS are also clients. Michael Ryan is praised for his ‘brightness and professionalism’, and is ‘best in class’.

Eversheds’ clients include Zamano and SEB Trygg. The team is extremely good at risk assessment. Gavin McGuire is well regarded.

LK Shields Solicitors focuses around tax investigations, prosecutions, stamp duty advice and tax litigation. Emmet Scully is recommended.

Maples and Calder bolstered its tax offering with the arrival of the highly rated Andrew Quinn from A&L Goodbody and senior associate William Fogarty from Linklaters LLP. It advised Morgan Stanley on setting up 110 SPVs in Ireland.

Walkers launched in 2011, and hired Anthony Smyth from William Fry and Petrina Smyth from Maples and Calder. The team was appointed sole tax adviser to Atradius and R&V, and also represents Archway Aviation.

ByrneWallace’s team, led by Ursula Tipp, has advised several German banks on tax aspects of their Irish activities.

John Cuddigan heads Ronan Daly Jermyn’s tax practice, which focuses on transactional tax.