On the spot event, organised by the Department of Law and the ATOZ Chair for European and International Taxation at the University of Luxembourg.
The Guest Lecturer
Błażej Kuźniacki is an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law, ACTL, The Netherlands) and a Research Assistant Professor at the Lazarski University (Warsaw, Poland). He is also an Advisor at PwC Global Tax Policy team, Senior Manager at the International Tax Services at PwC Netherlands (Amsterdam office) and attorney-at-law (Warsaw Bar Association). Holding a PhD from the University of Oslo (Norway, since 2017) and a habilitation from the Lazarski University (Poland, since 2023), Błażej is the author of around 100 publications with national and global coverage, including four monographs. He speaks frequently on international tax law, investment tax related disputes and tax XAI (eXplainable AI) next to his practice in these fields, including expert witness’s opinions.
Abstract
“Do International Investment Agreements Protect Against Unshell Directive & EU Windfall Taxes on Fossil Fuel Companies?” is an interdisciplinary lecture which combines knowledge on most recent EU tax law developments with a specific reference to a global investment regime and its enforcement mechanism – investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) – as a powerful protective legal tool countering fiscal misconduct detrimental to foreign investments. Prof. Kuźniacki will provide arguments according to which the two recent tax development in the EU legislation – (1) Unshell Directive Proposal (USP) and (2) EU Solidarity Contribution (SC, i.e. windfall tax on extra profits of fossil fuel companies) – trigger serious issues under IIAs and thus may be subject to ISDS, as initiated by foreign investors against individual Member States (MSs) implementing the mentioned EU legislation to their domestic legal orders. In respect of USP, he will be arguing that its implementation: (i) is not well founded in the acquis communautaire, including the CJEU case law and principle of good faith in Articles 26, 27, 31, and 46 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) and thus investors may rely on IIAs to claim that MSs violate their legitimate expectations to respect their obligations under tax treaties by applying anti-shell companies’ provisions. The EU Solidarity Contribution, in turn, may compromise protection of investments under IIAs as the current design might entail elements that violate the FET, including the lack of proportionality and the retroactivity.
The lecture will be chaired by Prof. Dr. Katerina Pantazatou, and commented on by Dr. Javier García Olmedo, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Luxembourg.
Registration
