Gary Richards is a corporate tax partner with Berwin Leighton Paisner. He advises on a wide range of international and domestic transactions, including acquisitions, disposals, spin offs and demergers, group reconstructions and finance raising, which often involve planning for groups with overseas operations or headquartered outside the UK. Many of these transactions have a significant property content. Gary is a member of the Law Society's Tax Law Committee, chairing the VAT & Duties sub-committee and participating in the Stamp Taxes working group. He is also a member of the editorial team for the British Tax Review. He is currently involved in HM Revenue & Customs consultative group on the reform of taxation of loan relationships.

Adam Frais is a tax partner at BDO Stoy Hayward with over 10 years' experience advising businesses on a range of tax planning issues, from corporate issues, arising on both organic and acquisitive growth, to employee benefit and shareholder exit planning. He has extensive experience managing key corporate tax issues for business, including acquisitions, disposals, property transactions, intangibles and capital allowances.

Michael Conlon QC has a broad legal and professional experience. He is currently the only Queen's Counsel to practise exclusively in indirect taxes. This is an important and complex area of taxation in which he has specialised for over 25 years. After reading law at Queens' College Cambridge, Michael was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1974 where he was a Duke of Edinburgh Scholar and Paul Methven Scholar. After pupillage with Standing Counsel to the Department of Trade, he practised in mixed common law chambers until 1977 gaining experience of most types of civil and criminal work. He transferred to the government legal service where he became a Senior Legal Adviser in the Solicitor's Office of HM Customs & Excise. His work there included criminal prosecutions in complex VAT and duty frauds, VAT appeals and litigation, legislative drafting and advising on European Community law and customs duties. From 1986 his career path was dictated in particular by the sudden demand for indirect tax expertise by major accountancy and law firms. He joined KPMG as a Senior Tax Manager then moved to Coopers & Lybrand in 1988 where he became a tax partner jointly responsible for the firm's flourishing indirect taxes practice. In 1991 he decided to return to mainstream legal practice and to re-qualify as a solicitor. He was a Senior Manager in the tax department at Freshfields and in 1993 moved to Allen & Overy where he was a tax partner until 1997. Michael decided to realise a longstanding ambition and return to the practising bar. He was re-admitted to the Inner Temple and in September 1997 joined the commercial law chambers of Lord Grabiner QC at One Essex Court. In October 2000 he transferred to Pump Court Tax Chambers. He took silk in April 2002.

Jonathan Cooklin is a tax partner for Freshfields based in London. He specialises in the tax aspects of corporate finance work, including public and private mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructurings and flotations. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and qualified as a chartered accountant with Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) before going on to qualify as a solicitor. He has been a partner at the firm since 2001. Philip Ridgway is a Partner at Deloitte where he leads their MVL practice. He advises on a wide variety of corporate transactions, with particular emphasis on company reconstructions. He is co-author of "Butterworths Tax Indemnities and Warranties." He is a Chartered Tax Adviser and sits on the CIOT Council.

Amanda Rowland of Berwin Leighton Paisner specialises principally in the tax aspects of corporate transactions generally including corporate group tax planning and restructuring, joint ventures and private equity arrangements. She advises on the tax aspects of structured property finance transactions for a range of institutional clients and the direct and indirect tax consequences of property transactions generally.

John Lindsay is a consultant at Linklaters. He is a fellow of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants and of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. John has had wide experience on advising on the taxation treatment of debt and derivatives and is a member of HM Revenue & Customs working group. He is a co-author of the Eighth Edition of the Taxation of Companies and Company Reconstructions and is the consulting editor of Financial Instruments Tax and Accounting Review. He is also a member of the Board of Editors of The IBFD's Derivative & Financial Instruments journal.

Peter Cussons is an International Tax Partner and Head of the Foreign Tax Desks at PWC. His areas of expertise include CFC, DTR, Treasury Consent, ECJ case law and litigation and the Substantial Shareholdings' legislation. He is also Chair of the International Tax Committee of the Tax Faculty for the ICAEW, Chair of PwC's Tax Treaty group and Chair of the EU Direct Tax group. Peter has for the 4th year been nominated by International Tax Review as 1 of the UK's top tax advisors. In addition in Jan '03 he was listed (as No 27) and Jan '04 (as No 29) in Accountancy Age's "Financial Power top 50" list.