Law360: Mark Allison Comments on $2.8B Denmark Refund Case

In late November, Denmark’s Customs and Tax Administration — known by the acronym SKAT — had asked the Manhattan court for permission to obtain evidence from a whistleblower in Denmark in the agency’s suit to recover $2.8 billion in taxes that should have been withheld from dividend payments to the U.S. funds.

“If [SKAT] can prove that the defendants never in fact owned the relevant Danish stocks — and the court is obliged to accept their allegations as true for present purposes — the revenue rule would not apply because the substance of the claims would be for garden-variety commercial fraud,” Judge Kaplan said. “Accordingly, the motion to dismiss is denied. Whether in light of discovery and a fuller presentation, the revenue rule will be of greater aid to the defendants, [who] must await developments.”

Mark Allison, of Caplin & Drysdale, who represents dozens of plans targeted by SKAT, said he was speaking “only on behalf of our clients and not as lead counsel” in the case.

“We are still evaluating the judge’s order and determining the appropriate next steps,” Allison told Law360 Thursday. “However, the ruling only allows the case to proceed at this point and does not represent any finding that the plaintiff’s allegations are in any way true.

“It is also important to note that the judge left open the opportunity to revisit our motion during discovery, given the important implications of the revenue rule,” he said.

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Excerpt taken from the article "U.S. Pension Plans Can't Shake $2.8B Denmark Refund Case" by Joseph Boris for Law360.