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Dear Colleagues,

In the beautiful city of Stockholm, we had the annual European meeting and I believe it was quite successful.We were lucky to have very good speakers both from among the AGN members as well as excellent individuals from outside.The main topics of the meeting were on Friday:

The economy in Sweden (Gert Frej and his partners)
Cross culture communications (a brilliant presentation and especially useful when dealing with business worldwide)
IFRS for SMEs (a presentation by Liam MacQuaid, our vice chair from Dublin)
The UK strategy as regard to money laundering (a lecture by the UK head officer of anti money laundering).

On Saturday morning, Nancy Cruickshanks, the new chair of the tax committee, organised the tax session with many inte-resting presentations by AGN members (Riccardo Biaggi, Mike Luckett, Fred Thomas, Magnus Lovén, Rene Verbruggen).

We also had the chance to listen to a lecture on VAT Carousel Fraud from a representative of the UK Ministry of Finance who last year also kindly attended our meeting in Athens.

On Saturday afternoon, AGN members and companions toured Stockholm, where everybody could meet informally. Alto-gether during the meeting there was some rain, a lot fun and new contacts and ideas.
I do thank Berith and her team, Penny and Mireia, for their involvement in the success of the meeting and, of course, Nick Blake for the usual excellent coordination.

The next European meeting will take place in early June, 2009 in Palma de Mallorca. I, myself, was in favour of meeting in an eastern European city, such as Krakow, Kiev or Prague, Moscow or St Petersburg. I thought it could be a good approach and show appreciation of our members from Russia, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Bela-rus, not to mention the Czech Republic, Croatia and Hungary, where we have had previous European meetings.

I was eventually convinced both by some European board members and friends from eastern Europe of those cities being too expensive in terms of hotels and a sunny resort would be more appropriate and attractive for everybody.

Therefore, the AGN flag was transferred from Berith Ehrenpohl (Sweden) to Manuel Satorra (Spain). I do hope that the sea and sun will gather many members and especially the newest ones.

As far as the membership, we have new contacts in Italy, North Germany and Paris.

I was pleased to read, according to a recent survey published in Accountancy Magazine that AGN International is the lar-gest worldwide association of separate and independent accounting and consulting firms. Thus our policy of avoiding being a network appears to be successful for the image of AGN.

Should you know quality companies you are working with, do not hesitate to introduce them to AGN.

Keep in mind also to register with PCAOB: just last week, our registration proved to be useful to our firm.
I am looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible in Buenos Aires. It is indeed far, but quite a unique experience, and, at least on that occasion, our too-strong Euro helps. In the meantime, do receive my best wishes for pleasant and sunny holidays.

François Martin
Chair, European Region
Caderas Martin
Paris, France
francois.martin@caderas-martin.com

AGN EUROPEAN REGIONAL CONGRESS 2008

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Stockholm, the north European city that is on 14 islands and where the sun is up 20h per day during summer months, has been the location chosen to host the 13th Regional Congress of AGN EUROPE.

It started on the 12th of June with a Welcome Cocktail that took place in a room with a view that looked across at the old town and everybody could appreciate the daylight in the evening hours. 93 delegates and companions representing 37 firms met old colleagues and friends and had the opportunity to meet representatives from some new member firms.

On Friday 13th, while companions had a tour to see Drottningholm Palace, the delegates attended the conference where there were speakers from AGN member firms and also professionals with very different backgrounds.

The conference commenced with an introduction to Sweden, starting with a speech about doing business in Sweden (Gert Frejs and Berith Ehrenpohl, partners of the AGN Swedish firm that hosted the conference, FREJS REVISIONSBYRÅ AB, and followed by a more relaxed point of view of the country: Colin Moon, (external speaker) talked about the culture of the Swedish and made very interesting points about different cultures in Europe and the difficulties and misunderstandings with communication. This was all done with a very sensitive touch of humour.

The conference continued with an exposition of IFRS for SME’s, taken by Liam McQuaid, and this was followed by an update on the committee’s activities and objectives.

Back to economic issues, Michael Clark (Head of Anti Money Laundering HM Treasury) talked about The UK strategy with Financial crime and money laundering. This was followed by a debate about Money Laundering in different European countries, and delegates took an active part in this session, sharing their experience and knowledge.

Geert van Grimbergen was given the opportunity to talk about his firm, Bluestone Accountants (Netherlands), as they had recently joined the Association and this was his first attendance at a European Congress.

The conference closed for the day with the Annual General Meeting, where Nicholas Blake (Company Secretary of AGN Europe) updated the members on the financial position of the region and members could have their say and vote.

On Saturday 14th, Wilhelm Gerster (Thöny Treuhand AG, Liechtenstein), Dragos Doros (Bostina & Associates, Romania) and Steven Vyvey (Vyvey & Co, Belgium) made small introductions about their firms as they have joined AGN recently.

After the introductions, it was the turn of the Tax Session that would last until the end of the conference.   The Taxation session included: Trusts in Switzerland (Ricardo Biaggi), The impact of UK new rules for non domiciliaries (Mike Luckett), Latest Developments in Luxembourg (Fred Thomas), Interesting EU Court Cases (Magnus Lovén), Salaries Survey in the website (René Verbruggen and Nancy Cruickshanks) and closing the Session, Steven Pope (Deputy National MTIC Coordinator, HM Revenue & Customs), talked about Carousel Fraud.

The closure of the conference was lead by François Martin, chair of AGN INTERNATIONAL – EUROPE Ltd, who thanked all delegates for their assistance and participation and announced that next year the conference would be held on the sunny island of Mallorca (Spain).

In the afternoon, delegates and companions were invited on a touristic tour around the city, which gave them the opportunity to enjoy the sites of Stockholm.

The gala dinner was celebrated at the Swedish National Museum, where an inside garden with a crystal cupola allowed members to enjoy a peaceful evening with the blue  sky above their heads.
This conference has been one of the most successful ones in the last years and members had a nice time meeting with their AGN colleagues, meeting new ones and having fun at the same time that they were doing business and went home with new contacts and information…. And all this, around the magic flavour of such an extraordinary place.

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A seminar has been organized by the Education Committee for firms in Eastern Europe to have the opportunity to discuss:

• specific aspects of IFRS
• the best way forward either by training presentations or by specific workshops
• identification of an IFRS contact in each firm
• consideration of creating a pool of information already generated by each specific firm for the benefit of the group as a whole
• identification of persons to serve on the Education Committee

This will take place at the offices of Schaffer & Partner in the Czech Republic on September 12, 2008. Penny Sivers has al-ready sent the registration form to all Eastern European firms.

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UNITED KINGDOM
DIXON WILSON

David Nelson was recently elected the new Senior Partner at Dixon Wilson, in the UK.  David becomes only the 9th Senior Partner in the firm’s 120 year history, a reflection on the firm’s longevity and consistency in it’s staffing.
David is on the board of AGN International – Europe Limited.  His practice involves advising foreign-domiciled UK residents and non-UK residents with substantial investment and property interests as well as businesses in the media, leisure and financial services sectors.

Dixon Wilson  also reports the retirement as a partner of Robin Thomas.  Robin joined Dixon Wilson in 1970 and became a partner in 1977.  Throughout his career at Dixon Wilson, he specialized in tax while maintaining a role as consultant to a number of international businesses.  Robin’s services are being retained by the firm, as he will continue with the firm as a consultant. 
Robin’s varied work has included specializing in serious back duty cases, as the favorite accountant expert witness of George Carman QC (the UK’s leading lawyer advocate of the 1980’s and 1990’s) and a role in a number of high profile celebrity court cases on such varied matters as tax back duty, libel, perjury and copyright. 
Dixon Wilson also welcomes Jim Ellis as Marketing Manager.  Jim joins us from BDO Stoy Hayward, and is keen to bring a fresh perspective to the firm’s marketing and business development strategy.

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UKRAINE
GLOBAL CONSULTING CORPORATON
Has opened another office in Kiev. Its address is:

Global Consulting Corporation
Solomenskaya Square 2, office 505
Kiev, 03035, Ukraine
Tel: +38 044 2820142
e-mail: kiev@gc.ua
www.gc.ua

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