Category: News

Hong Kong BN(O) visa policy

The Secretary of State for the Home Department has announced that the UK will create a bespoke immigration route for British Nationals (Overseas) from Hong Kong (“BN(O)”).  This new Hong Kong BN(O) visa policy is a very generous one without imposing skills tests or minimum income requirements, economic needs tests or caps on numbers and will allow BN(O) holders to reside and work or study in the UK, with a pathway to settlement and then citizenship.

The visa will be valid for up to 5 years, and thereafter, provided that the visa holders have stayed free of criminality, have supported themselves financially and otherwise complied with the terms of the visa, they will be able to apply for settled status; and they may apply for UK citizenship after a further year of stay.

Private Client – Pre-Migration Planning

If you are considering coming to the UK under the new Hong Kong BN(O) visa, it is important that you understand the personal tax and legal implications that apply prior to, on and after your arrival in the UK.

Our Private Client team is adept at advising on the full suite of private client services (including tax planning) and when combined with our firm’s well-established corporate and property departments, we are able to provide you with holistic, tailored advice to make sure that you have the best strategy to relocate to the UK. Our advice may include, for example:

• How best to structure purchase of UK real estate
• Setting up onshore and offshore trusts for wealth preservation
• Succession planning to help ensure assets in various jurisdictions are dealt with in the most efficient way
• Residence and remittance planning for Income tax and Capital Gain tax purpose
• How to structure investments into the UK
• Multiple jurisdictional Wills and Powers of Attorney

Property investment in the UK – commercial or residential

The UK is a long-established favourite for property investors all over the world. Whether you are thinking of purchasing UK properties for yourself or for investment purpose, our Real Estate lawyers will be able to assist you. We are a firm that takes a modern and commercial approach to property law but retains traditional values.  We ensure that your matter will always be dealt with in a cost-effective way by a fee earner at the most appropriate level with appropriate seniority to make sure you receive the service you deserve.

Commercial Property

Our clients range from leading property owners and institutional and private investors to developers and builders, banks and financial institutions, hoteliers, private landlords, entrepreneurs, franchisees, blue chip tenants with complex occupational leases, leisure and healthcare property owners, start-up businesses, established business occupiers and high net-worth individuals, UK-based or off-shore.

Each of them values our significant market reputation and experience in dealing with all types of real estate transaction.

We provide advice on property matters at all levels and have acted on some of the most high profile and cutting edge landlord and tenant cases of the last 10 years including the ground-breaking decision of Daejan Investments Limited v Benson and others and, possibly the most important landlord and tenant case in front of the courts in recent years, EMI Group Ltd v O & H Q1 Ltd.

Talk to GSC’s Real Estate team about:

• Buying or selling commercial property
• Developing property
• Franchises
• Hotels, Leisure & Healthcare
• Leases of commercial property
• Property Disputes
• Real Estate Finance and Banking

Residential Property

GSC’s residential property lawyers deal with high value conveyancing throughout England and Wales, including Crown property and other historical estates.  We understand the complex issues that can arise when dealing with such properties and we know that your best interests are only best served when your conveyancing is managed in a way that fits seamlessly with your tax, family and private wealth management.

That is why residential conveyancing with GSC is never carried out in isolation.  Talk to us and you will find your property lawyers working alongside our Private Client team to ensure all your interests are carefully considered and protected.

Our property lawyers can assist in all aspects of residential property law including the disposal or acquisition of freeholds and leaseholds, lease extensions, enfranchisement and rights of first refusal.

Carey Xu, Associate Solicitor

Carey is an Associate Solicitor in the Private Wealth Team.

She has an extensive experience in dealing with High Net Worth individuals with complex immigration and wealth planning matters. She also acted for start-ups and corporate businesses for business immigration and employment issues. Carey has 100% success rate of all the immigration applications represented to date.

She is also the Head of China Desk looking after Chinese speaking clients on a range of immigration, private client, company commercial, property and intellectual property matters.  She is fluent in Chinese and English.

If you and/or your business is thinking to relocate to the U.K., please ensure to make Carey as your first port of call.

GSC Solicitors LLP

T: +44(020) 7822 222

E: [email protected]

© 2021 GSC Solicitors LLP. All rights reserved. GSC grants permission for the browsing of this material and for the printing of one copy per person for personal reference. GSC’s written permission must be obtained for any other use of this material. This publication has been prepared only as a guide to provide readers with general information on recent legal developments. It is not formal legal advice and should not be relied on for any purpose. You should not act or refrain from acting based on the information contained in this document without obtaining specific formal advice from suitably qualified advisors.

 

The Office of Tax Simplification (OTS), an independent adviser to the Government, has been asked by Chancellor, Rishi Sunak to review Capital Gains Tax (CGT) to identify any potential administrative and technical issues and need for reform.

It is inevitable that taxes will have to rise to meet the cost of supporting the British economy through the COVID-19 pandemic, and this review is likely to use CGT as a way of increasing revenue for the Government.

We expect the report, to be released in early 2021, to make the following recommendations:

1. to change the CGT rates to align them with Income Tax rates
2. to reduce the number of CGT rates, and the extent to which liabilities depend on the level of income of the taxpayers
3. to consider reducing the Annual Exempt Amount
4. to remove the capital gains uplift on death if a relief or exemption from Inheritance Tax is applicable, and to treat the recipient as acquiring the deceased’s assets at the historic base cost
5. to replace the Business Asset Disposal Relief with a relief more focused on retirement
6. to remove relief for investors selling shares in unlisted companies if they have owned them for a minimum of three years.

Whilst the Government has commissioned the report, it is not obligated to accept its findings but, at some point, it will have to turn its attention to how to cover the cost of the pandemic.

We expect that clients will be considering accelerating their restructuring or exit strategy in preparation of the increase in tax rates in the near future.

If you have a question, please do not hesitate to contact James Cohen directly on [email protected] or 0207 822 2257.

© 2020 GSC Solicitors LLP. All rights reserved. GSC grants permission for the browsing of this material and for the printing of one copy per person for personal reference. GSC’s written permission must be obtained for any other use of this material. This publication has been prepared only as a guide to provide readers with general information on recent legal developments. It is not formal legal advice and should not be relied on for any purpose. You should not act or refrain from acting based on the information contained in this document without obtaining specific formal advice from suitably qualified advisors.

 

On 31 October this year, the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will end.

The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced that from 1 November it will be replaced by the Job Support Scheme. The headlines relating to the Job Support Scheme are:

• It will apply to employees who work at least 33% of their normal hours.
• For the hours not worked by the individual, the government and the employer will each pay the employee one third of the employee’s equivalent salary for that unworked time.
• The level of contribution by the government for each employee will be capped at £697.92 per month.
• To qualify, an employee must have been on an employer’s PAYE payroll on or before 23 September 2020.
• Employers will be able to move employees on and off the Job Support Scheme.
• Employees are not required to consistently work the same hours, but to qualify must work the same hours for at least seven days at a time.
• The employer must agree any changes to working arrangements with the employee and notify the employee of the changes in writing (and any such agreement must be made available to HMRC on request).
• An employer does not need to have been part of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to participate in the Job Support Scheme.
• It is currently planned that the Job Support Scheme will run for six months.

The law in this article is accurate as of 24 September 2020.

If you have any employment law queries, please do not hesitate to contact David Nathan at [email protected] or on 020 7822 2247.

© 2020 GSC Solicitors LLP. All rights reserved. GSC grants permission for the browsing of this material and for the printing of one copy per person for personal reference. GSC’s written permission must be obtained for any other use of this material. This publication has been prepared only as a guide to provide readers with general information on recent legal developments. It is not formal legal advice and should not be relied on for any purpose. You should not act or refrain from acting based on the information contained in this document without obtaining specific formal advice from suitably qualified advisors.

 

Many businesses in the UK operate successfully without the benefit of a registered trade mark to protect their brand name or logo.

It may be that they feel that their brand is too descriptive to be registered as a trade mark, the brand may still be in the process of development or it may simply be that registering a trade mark is one item on a long list that the business has not had time to address yet.

These businesses are still able to protect their brand in the UK using the common law, this is known as “Passing Off”. The right to bring an action for Passing Off does not require any registration and arises once a business has started to build up a reputation.

However, while it can be tempting for businesses to rely on Passing Off, registering a trade mark should generally be the preferable approach for the following reasons.

Immediate protection

Once a trade mark is registered, it will give the owner immediate protection over that mark, regardless of whether it has been used in the past or not and whether or. Although the mark could be revoked in the future if the mark is not used, in the UK there is an initial period of five years where the mark can not be challenged on this basis.

Whilst a Passing Off claim can be made without the need for registration, the brand owner will need to show that the name or logo has been used and that goodwill in the business has been built up. It follows that the protection afforded by Passing Off for a fledgling business will be more limited than that conferred by a registered trade mark.

Identification of potential conflicts

The application process for a trade mark will usually involve searches of the trade mark registry by both, the relevant Intellectual Property Office and by any professional firm that you use.

Applying for a trade mark can identify existing trade marks which may reduce the strength of your brand or even lead to litigation if any of those owners challenge not only your application but also your use of name or logo.

So the initial steps of a trade mark registration can assist in evaluating the benefits of using a particular name or logo.  The prospect of potentially re-branding at an early stage may not seem appealing, but it is much easier at the genesis of a business when there is limited value in that brand (and limited expenditure on the name and logo).

The alternative could be a costly dispute in the future and the prospect of losing the ability to use the brand that you have developed.

Alerting other parties to your rights

By registering a trade mark, that mark will appear on the relevant register. This is a public database which clearly identifies your right to the mark and the date when this arose.

There is no equivalent general database in respect of Passing Off and so rival traders may seek to register a conflicting trade mark without being aware of your pre-existing rights.

Furthermore, if you have a registered trade mark, then you may be notified of any applications for new marks which could affect that mark as the relevant intellectual property office (or anyone tasked with monitoring the register on your behalf) will usually check the registers for any conflicting marks.

Costs of enforcement

If you choose to rely on Passing Off to protect your name and logo, you will not incur the fees required to register a trade mark.  However, you are likely to incur greater fees where you seek to rely on the Passing Off to protect the use of your name or logo (whether by taking action in the courts to stop any interference or by opposing an application for the registration of a rival’s mark in the relevant trade mark registry).

The existence of a registered trade mark can be easily proven by reference to the applicable register.  Without being able to rely on a trade mark, you will instead have to show the following three elements of Passing Off:

1. Goodwill – that your business has built up a reputation;
2. Misrepresentation – that the Defendant has misrepresented their goods and services as yours; and
3. Damage – that the misrepresentation is causing damage to your business, usually by way of diverted sales.

International Expansion

Where you are seeking immediate protection in a number of countries, you can use the international trade mark system to replicate the applications around the world, often before you have even started trading abroad.

While some other countries have similar laws to Passing Off, generally you will need to have traded in each country before being able to rely on those laws.

For further questions please do not hesitate to contact Ross Waldram directly on [email protected] or 0207 822 2236.

© 2020 GSC Solicitors LLP. All rights reserved. GSC grants permission for the browsing of this material and for the printing of one copy per person for personal reference. GSC’s written permission must be obtained for any other use of this material. This publication has been prepared only as a guide to provide readers with general information on recent legal developments. It is not formal legal advice and should not be relied on for any purpose. You should not act or refrain from acting based on the information contained in this document without obtaining specific formal advice from suitably qualified advisors.