Uwe Eppler — Partner at Norton Rose Fulbright

Dr. Uwe Eppler serves as a Partner of Norton Rose LLP. Mr. Eppler is a tax and corporate finance lawyer based in Hamburg. He is double qualified as a lawyer and a certified tax adviser (Steuerberater). He specialises in national and international tax law focuses on the real estate, technology and energy sectors as well as banking and finance, including fund structuring. He has extensive experience advising on the tax and corporate aspects of mergers and acquisitions (including tax due diligence, pre-acquisition structuring and post-merger integration), reorganisations, restructurings and financings as well as the structuring of closed and open-ended funds. He advises on transfer pricing, on tax efficient international IP and licensing structures and other inter-company arrangements as well as on the VAT aspects of national and cross border supplies and services. This includes representing clients in tax audits and tax litigations. In relation to real estate investments, he is an expert on the structuring and financing of real estate acquisitions and reorganisations, the establishment of real estate funds, advising on tax efficient real estate transfer tax structures as well as dealing with corporate tax, trade tax and VAT matters. Major transactions, he has acted on in recent years include the acquisition of Amiando AG for the Hamburg based online business network company XING AG; the acquisition of Berlin based internet company City Deal GmbH for Chicago based Groupon, Inc.; the sale of Associated Press GmbH for New York based The Associated Press; the acquisition and financing of several onshore and offshore wind farms; advice for Zurich Insurance on multinational insurance propositions; the acquisition and post merger integration of LOI Thermprocess GmbH and TAKRAF GmbH for Milan based Techint/Tenova S.p.A; and the acquisition and refinancing of a portfolio of German properties by Wichford P.L.C. Further recent projects include advising a US based REIT on its multi-billion USD refinancing and the consequences for its German real estate portfolio. He studied law at the University of Hamburg and was admitted to the bar in 2002. For his doctoral thesis on 'tax avoidance in national and international tax law' he received an award in 2002. Mr. Eppler qualified as a certified tax adviser in 2007.