Transfer Pricing Aggies Present at the American Bar Association © Lorraine Eden, leden@tamu.edu (2-6-15)

Fifteen Transfer Pricing Aggies (students in the George Bush School, the Mays Business School and the Economics Department at Texas A&M), together with their instructor Prof. Lorraine Eden (Professor of Management in the Mays Business School and an associated faculty member in the Bush School), were guests of the American Bar Association (ABA) at the ABA Tax Section Midyear Meetings in Houston, TX, January 29-31, 2015.

In a two-hour “Transfer Pricing Student Symposium” on January 29, six of the students presented their analyses of two recent transfer pricing cases: GlaxoSmithKline v. Her Majesty the Queen (Andrea Berrios, Zike Chen and Yue (Nancy) Zhang) and Veritas v. Commissioner (Lindsey Cude, Christopher Janes and Sean Larsen). The students had originally prepared their analyses as part of their Fall 2014 course work in Prof. Eden’s MGMT/INTA 663 International Transfer Pricing. Chairs for the Student Symposium were Richard Lilley (Georgetown University Law Center and PwC) and Jana Lessne (KPMG).

Afterwards, the students attended a Texas Tax Directors panel chaired by Kelly Hales (Ernst & Young) on new developments in transfer pricing, and were guests at the ABA Tax Transfer Pricing reception.

On January 30, Prof. Eden and Jonathan Hunt (Mayer Brown) gave a joint presentation in an hour-long panel on “Intangibles in Litigation: Defining and Valuing Compensable “Intangibles.” The Eden-Hunt panel was chaired by Val Albright (Gardere Wynne Sewell).

These events provided an opportunity for Transfer Pricing Aggies to network with tax and transfer pricing experts in US and foreign law firms, and to learn more about job opportunities and practices in the legal profession. This opportunity provided by the ABA is especially important since such a diverse group of students participated. The students come from three colleges (Mays, Bush and Liberal Arts) and six degree programs (Accounting, MBA, Economics, Finance, International Affairs, Public Administration) at Texas A&M, and from six home countries (United States, China, Madagascar, Vietnam, Iran and the Ukraine), making this event both interdisciplinary and international.

The members of the ABA Tax Section Transfer Pricing Committee who organized this event were E. Miller Williams, Jr. (Ernst & Young), John C. Hughes (US Internal Revenue Service) and Tracy Gomes (McDermott Will & Emery). Prof. Eden and the students gratefully acknowledge the invitation and financial assistance from the ABA, Ernst & Young and the Bush School.

For more information on this event or Transfer Pricing Aggies, please contact Prof. Lorraine Eden at leden@tamu.edu.

The first photo below shows the six presenters (from left to right: Yue (Nancy) Zhang, Zike Chen ‘14, Andrea Berrios, Sean Larsen, Lindsey Cude ‘14 and Christopher Janes).

The second photo shows the six presenters with their instructor, Prof. Lorraine Eden (MGMT) and an ABA session organizer Richard Lilley (Georgetown and PwC).

The third photo shows all 15 students who participated in the ABA Tax Section meetings. Left to right: Dung (June) Nguyen, Biyun (Nick) Jiang, Herilala Fano, Yue (Nancy) Zhang, Andrea Berrios, Christopher Janes, Lindsey Cude, Parsa Pourankooh, Zike Chen, Shuting Shan, Sean Larsen, Tetiana Zakrevska, Yukuai He, Fatima Riyaz and Sanmita Nepal.

The last photo shows the 15 students with their instructor, Prof. Lorraine Eden (MGMT).