Malcolm is one of our senior partners, and works in two areas: Private Wealth and Tax, and Charities.
He delivers strategic advice to entrepreneurs, business owners, families and high-net worth individuals on succession- and tax-planning. This might typically include advice on: the availability of inheritance tax exemptions and reliefs; capital gains and income tax mitigation; creating, administering and closing trusts; the management of the affairs of the elderly and incapable; partnership law; and structures to help manage wealth transition between generations.
Malcolm leads our Charities team. He is familiar with all charitable structures – CLGs, SCIOs, trusts and unincorporated associations – and advises on current regulatory and economic challenges, governance and the use of charitable funds. This might specifically include advice on: establishing and administering a charitable organisation; and constitutional, governance, regulation, accounting and tax issues. Malcolm has a particular interest in educational charities and also advises philanthropists on their giving and structures/reporting related to such.
Malcolm understands how things look ‘from the other side of the table’, as he sits as a charity trustee on the boards of several charities. He is often asked to speak and write on issues on charity law in Scotland, and is the co-author of a practical guide on the subject.
- Advising a HNWI on succession-planning involving a family business with assets in excess of £300 million.
- Advising on cross-border succession-planning for a couple with heritable assets in the UK, France and the US.
- Advising US clients on succession-planning around a large Scottish estate, involving the interaction of UK/US Wills and tax compliance.
- Advising clients with a large property portfolio (£200 million) on its transfer into a family investment company to aid succession-planning.
- Advising executors of a large multi-jurisdictional estate (assets located in the UK, The Caymans and Australia) on probate requirements, liaison with foreign agents and coordination of tax payments in excess of £50 million.
- Advising a farming partnership on recasting the partnership agreement with assets of circa £20 million, multiple parties and coordination of a large development gain within the firm.
- Advising trustees in a contentious matter involving a life interest trust, multiple capital beneficiaries and an incapable life tenant.
- Advising a high-profile charity on an OSCR inquiry into a fund-raising and governance complaint, with potentially very serious consequences for the charity, the case resulting in a very successful outcome for the charity.
- Advising a Scottish University on a US legacy to IRR, involving assessing the practical aspects of paying through the University’s US Development Trust, implications of a change of name and amalgamation of original beneficiary in to receiving body, and complexities of US tax in the context of the charity.
- Advising a charity established by Royal Charter on a revision to its constitution, through application to the Privy Council.
- Advising an educational endowment on a reconstitution as a company limited by guarantee, overseeing the OSCR application and addressing challenges made by potential beneficiaries.
- Advising an animal charity on an OSCR inquiry into allegations of governance failings, managing the response, investigating and compiling answers to OSCR’s queries, and achieving a clear result favouring the charity.
