Biography:
After being called to the Bar of England and Wales (Lincoln’s Inn, 2011), Jivaan began his career in the Tax and Legal Services team of a Big4 accounting firm in the Caribbean, where he managed the tax and commercial disputes portfolio.
He retrained and qualified as a solicitor into the corporate tax team of Linklaters LLP (London). His tax practice primarily entails advising on potentially contentious legal issues (tax and commercial) in the context of cross-border M&A, corporate reorganisations and finance transactions, as well as assisting clients in resolving tax disputes with tax authorities, including representation before the relevant tribunals and courts.
Jivaan regularly advises clients in a range of sectors, spanning private equity and financial sponsors, financial institutions, fintech, consumer goods, energy and sports. Jivaan has a fervent interest in legislative policy development in developing countries, especially as it relates to international taxation and commercial law.
Current and past projects in this respect include:
(i) advising the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on the drafting of three model Bills relating to company, insolvency and partnership laws;
(ii) advising a state on its tax reforms to comply with OECD requirements to facilitate removal from the grey list; and
(iii) developing and delivery tax training to the tax authority of a state’s tax authority on international tax law issues, including double tax treaties and transfer pricing. Jivaan is a member of Linklaters’ Latin America Group and is Head of the Linklaters Caribbean Desk. Outside of practice, Jivaan is a visiting lecturer at King’s College London on the International Tax Law LLM, where he lectures on the International Tax Law and the EU Tax Law modules and supervises dissertations related to these topics.