Italian VAT law has recently been changed so that the place of supply of services relating to the leasing and chartering of a yacht is now the place where the leased or chartered yacht is actually used by the customer.
Watson Farley & Williams has advised portfoliomanagement, the winding-up agency of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein, on the due diligence for the sale of a number of vessels that are part of its remaining shipping loan portfolio to a bidding consortium comprising the Bank of America and Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP.
This ground-breaking transaction represents the first JOLCO involving a joint venture between ICBC Leasing and China Merchants Energy Shipping, with the vessels in question commissioned for a long-term contract of affreightment with Brazilian conglomerate Vale.