Good news – on 15 May 2018, the European Commission
announced that it had approved the prolongation of State Aid Relief
for Enterprise Management Incentive (EMI) arrangements.
In our previous
alert we explained that EU State Aid approval for EMI
arrangements had expired on 6 April 2018. Shortly before the
expiry, HMRC published a Bulletin in
which it confirmed that EMI options granted before 6 April 2018
would continue to benefit from the tax advantages offered to EMI
options. The Bulletin also said that options granted after 6 April
2018 "may not be eligible" for EMI tax reliefs.
Although HMRC has not confirmed the position since the European
Commission decision, it appears that the intention is that EMI
options granted both after the European Commission decision and in
the period between 6 April 2018 and the date on which the decision
was published will benefit from the tax reliefs applying to EMI
options. HMRC noted in their April Bulletin that they would
