Mylan Australia Holding is a subsidiary of the multinational pharmaceutical company Mylan Group. Mylan Australia Holding is the head of the Australian tax consolidated group, which includes its subsidiary Mylan Australia Pty. In 2007, Mylan Australia Pty acquired the shares of Alphapharm Pty Ltd and a substantial loan (A$923,205,336) was provided by a group company in Luxembourg to finance the acquisition. In subsequent years the interest expense was deducted from the taxable income of Mylan’s Australian tax group. The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) issued amended assessments to Mylan Australia Holding disallowing approximately AUD 589 million of interest deductions claimed for the 2007 to 2017 tax years. The ATO had initially pursued the structure as a transfer pricing issue, but ultimately argued that the deductions should be disallowed under the general anti-avoidance rule. Mylan Australia Holding appealed to the Federal Court. Judgment of the Court The Federal Court decided in favour of Mylan Australia Holding and set aside the amended assessment issued by the tax office. Excerpts “The conclusions I have reached on the principal issues are as follows: (a) MAHPL did not obtain a tax benefit in connection with the primary scheme that may be calculated by reference to the primary counterfactual; (b) had none of the schemes been entered into or carried out, the most reliable — and a sufficiently reliable — prediction of what would have occurred is what I have termed the “preferred counterfactual”; (c) the principal integers of the preferred counterfactual are as follows: (i) MAPL would have borrowed the equivalent of AUD 785,329,802.60 on 7 year terms under the SCA (specifically the term applying to Tranche B), at a floating rate consistent with the rates specified in the SCA; (ii) MAPL would otherwise have been equity funded to the extent necessary to fund the initial purchase of Alphapharm and to stay within the thin capitalisation safe harbour ratio from time to time; (iii) Mylan would have guaranteed MAPL’s borrowing under the SCA; (iv) Mylan would not have charged MAPL a guarantee fee; (v) interest on the borrowing would not have been capitalised; (vi) MAPL would have been required to pay down the principal on a schedule consistent with that specified in the SCA and would have made voluntary repayments to reduce its debt as necessary to stay within the thin capitalisation safe harbour, from time to time; (vii) MAPL would not have taken out hedges to fix some or all of its interest rate expense; (viii) MAPL would have taken out cross-currency swaps into AUD at an annual cost of 3.81% per annum over AUD 3 month BBSW; and (ix) if MAPL’s cashflow was insufficient to meet its interest or principal repayment obligations, Mylan would have had another group company loan MAPL the funds necessary to avoid it defaulting on its obligations, resulting in MAPL owing those funds to that related company lender by way of an intercompany loan, accruing interest at an arm’s length rate; (d) MAHPL did (subject to matters of calculation) obtain a tax benefit in connection with the schemes, being the difference between the deductions for interest obtained in fact, and the deductions for interest that would be expected to be allowed on the preferred counterfactual; and (e) MAHPL has discharged its onus in relation to the dominant purpose enquiry specified by s 177D of the ITAA36 and so has established that the assessments issued to it were excessive.” “Conclusions on dominant purpose I do not consider that, having regard to the eight matters in s 177D(b), it would be concluded that Mylan or any other of the persons who entered into or caried out the schemes or any part of the schemes did so for the purpose of enabling MAHPL to obtain a tax benefit in connection with the schemes. Of the numerous topics addressed above in relation to those eight matters, only one supports a contrary conclusion: the failure to refinance PN A2 or otherwise revisit the interest rate paid on PN A2. Nevertheless, the authorities recognise that not all matters need to point in one direction, whether the conclusion is that that there was the requisite dominant purpose, or the converse: see, eg, Sleight at [67] (Hill J). Other matters addressed are neutral, or point to purposes other than obtaining a tax benefit in connection with the schemes. It must be recalled that merely obtaining a tax benefit does not satisfy s 177D: Guardian at [207] (Hespe J, Perry and Derrington JJ agreeing). Nor does selecting, from alternative transaction forms, one that has a lower tax cost of itself necessarily take the case within s 177D. It is, as the plurality explained in Spotless Services (at 416), only where the purpose of enabling the obtaining of a tax benefit is the “ruling, prevailing, or most influential purpose” that the requisite conclusion will be reached. In my assessment, MAHPL has established that, assessed objectively (and keeping in mind that the question is not what Mylan’s actual, subjective purpose was), the facts of this case do not attract that conclusion.” Click here for translation ...

Mylan Australia Holding is a subsidiary of the multinational Mylan Group, which is active in the pharmaceutical industry. Mylan Australia Holding is the head of the Australian tax consolidated group, which includes its subsidiary Mylan Australia Pty. In 2007, Mylan Australia Pty acquired the shares of Alphapharm Pty Ltd. and to finance the acquisition, a substantial loan (A$923,205,336) was provided by a group company in Luxembourg. In the following years interest expenses was deducted from the taxable income of Mylan’s Australian tax group. The tax authorities issued a notice of assessment for the years 2009 to 2020 disallowing the deduction of excessive interest expense incurred as a result of the financing arrangement. Initially the tax authorities relied on both transfer pricing provisions and the general anti-avoidance provision (Pt IVA), but subsequently they relied only on the latter as the basis for the assessment. Mylan Australia Holding filed appeals on 4 June 2021 in respect of the 2009-2019 assessment and on 6 April 2022 in respect of the 2020 assessment. During the subsequent proceedings, the tax authorities requested Mylan to provide certain documents (including a PwC email of 2 October 2008 referring to a “financial model which we modified continuously … to evaluate the US tax effectiveness …”) related to the financial arrangement. Mylan however, refused to do so claiming that the documents were protected by Legal Professional privilege. Order of the Federal Court The Federal Court ordered Mylan Australia Holding to obtain and provide the requested documents. Excerpts “THE COURT ORDERS THAT: 1. By 14 July 2023, the Applicant take all reasonable steps available to it to obtain the documents, or copies thereof, which fall within the categories set out in Schedule 1, which are in the power, custody or control of Viatris Inc and/or Mylan Inc and/or Mylan Laboratories Inc. 2. Pursuant to r 20.15(1) of the Federal Court Rules 2011 (Cth), the Applicant give non-standard discovery of the categories of documents in Schedule 1 by 28 July 2023. 3. By 28 July 2023, the Applicant file and serve an affidavit as to the Applicant’s efforts made pursuant to order 1 and the nature of the searches made to locate documents responsive to the categories of documents in Schedule 1. …” Click here for translation ...

In the course of an audit a formal request to produce certain documents was issued to the multinational meat production group JBS by the Australian tax authorities. On behalf of its client, PwC claimed that the documents requested were subject to legal professional privilege (LPP), and therefore did not need to be produced. Thus, PwC declined to provide approximately 44,000 documents. The tax authorities disputed the LPP claims over approximately 15,500 documents. However, for the purposes of the trial, only 116 sample documents were selected by the partis and considered by the court. Judgement of the Federal Court The court found that legal professional privilege claims needed to be considered on a document-by-document basis. From the sample of documents selected by the parties, the court concluded that 49 were privileged; 6 were partly privileged; and 61 were not privileged. Excerpt “It is therefore necessary to consider, on a document-by-document basis, whether each Sample Document is subject to legal professional privilege. This requires consideration of whether the Sample Documents are, or record, communications made for the dominant purpose of giving or receiving legal advice. This question is to be determined by reference to the content of the document, its context, and the relevant evidence relating to the document. A critical part of the context in the present case is that the services were provided by a multi-disciplinary partnership and that the team carrying out the work comprised both lawyers and non-lawyers. Another contextual matter is the involvement of overseas PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) firms in many of the same projects (under separate engagements). At least in the case of PwC Brazil and PwC USA, the overseas firms were not able to provide legal advice and made clear that they were not doing so. For the reasons that follow, I have concluded that many of the Sample Documents are privileged, but that many are not.” ...

In this case CUB Australia Holding Pty Ltd appeals a judicial review decision by a judge of the Federal Court. The tax authorities had issued a Notice on 4 March 2020 requesting CUB to provide certain details about documents over which CUB had claimed legal professional privilege (LPP). CUB declined to provide the requested details about the documents in full. The tax authorities then issued a “formal notice” to the taxpayer demanding (under threat of prosecution for non-compliance) the information. CUB argued that the notice was issued (at least partly) for an “improper purpose” and was therefore invalid. According to CUB evidence showed that the authorities did not seek the information to decide whether to challenge the taxpayer’s claim of legal professional privilege, but instead to determine the claim. Judgement of the Federal Court The court upheld the previous judicial review-decision. The officer that had issued the disputed notice, gave evidence that “determining the claim” had not been the purpose. The court accepted this evidence and unanimously rejected CUBs appeal ...

The Australian Tax Office had obtained information from the Paradise Paper-leak and used the information in a tax assessment of Glencore. Glencore held that such leaked information was confidential (protected by legal professional privilege) and could not be used in a tax assessment. On that basis Glencore filed an appeal to the High Court. High Court Decision The Australien High Court dismissed the appeal and allowed use of the leaked information for tax assessment purposes. “In no way do these cases support the notion that common law courts elsewhere are granting injunctions with respect to privileged material on the basis only of the wrongfulness associated with its taking.  Certainly, it is necessary for an equity to arise that the person to be restrained must have an obligation of conscience, but the basis for an injunction is the need to protect the confidentiality of the privileged document. The plaintiffs’ case for the grant of relief on a basis other than confidentiality is simply this:  that any furtherance of the public interest which supports the privilege is sufficient to warrant the creation of a new, actionable right respecting privileged documents.  This is not how the common law develops.  The law develops by applying settled principles to new circumstances, by reasoning from settled principles to new conclusions, or determining that a category is not closed.  Even then the law as developed must cohere with the body of law to which it relates.  Policy considerations may influence the development of the law but only where that development is available having regard to the state of settled principles.  Policy considerations cannot justify an abrupt change which abrogates principle in favour of a result seen to be desirable in a particular case. In the absence of further facts it is not possible to say whether the plaintiffs are without any possibility of a remedy.  But if there is a gap in the law, legal professional privilege is not the area which might be developed in order to provide the remedy sought.” ...