DU-BALADAD and Associates (BDB Law), a reputable tax firm in the Philippines, has bagged the Asia Tax Policy Firm of the Year award, given to tax practitioners who have contributed to reforming a country’s tax system, with the award handed out by the International Tax Review earlier this month.
The International Tax Review Asia Tax Awards 2018, held in Singapore on May 3, recognized the firms and tax practitioners from across the globe that helped shape a country’s tax system or helped clarify certain issues on hand.
BDB Law has won two awards for the Philippines during the event, namely, Philippine Tax Disputes and Litigation Firm of the year for the national level, as well as the Asia Tax Policy Firm of the year award for the regional level for the year 2018.
“The international tax review is an international organization which is a research firm that does rankings of all tax practitioners worldwide. For each year, they award practitioners or firms in certain categories and normally they do it by regions, so in our case it’s Asia tax awards for all of Asia,” BDB Law Founding Partner and CEO Benedicta Du-Baladad told the BusinessMirror in a phone interview.
For the Philippine Tax Disputes and Litigation Firm of the Year award, four firms from the Philippines were in the running for the award, including Deloitte, KPMG, Quisumbing Torres and BDB Law being chosen as the winner by the organization.
“We won the national award and the regional award, wherein the nominees would be coming from all over Asia. So we won two: First is the national award, which is the best tax dispute and litigation firm. Normally, if you are in disputes and litigation, the cases that you will put there will be litigation cases. The cases should ask what is so important about this case, is it something that presented a new thinking of a certain matter, or that will shape the jurisprudence, or clarifies an issue on hand,” she added.
Du-Baladad said nominees for the award were required to submit 10 to 30 cases that would be the basis of the organization for the award. She further said the firm only submitted 10 cases for the organization to assess.
“You have to submit at least 10 to 30 [cases]. In our case, I think we just submitted 10, 10 litigation cases that were decided during the year,” she said.
For the regional level, the Asia Tax Policy Firm of the year award was also presented to BDB Law coming from six nominated firms namely Dhruva Advisors, KPMG, Rao Law Chambers, SKP, and Yulchon.
“The other one is a regional award, which is the best firm that worked on a tax policy matter in the country, that will shape the landscape of the tax system or tax policy in a country. So here your competitors will be other tax practitioners in other countries in the region,” she added.
Du-BaladaD said the firm will continue to do its best to keep its positive status, aiming to garner the award again for 2019.
“Of course, it’s difficult to sustain that as it means expectations that since you are the best, then we have to work our best to keep that status. So there will be for sure [changes] not only within us but also to excel, and win this award again,” she said.
BDB Law specializes in the areas of taxation and corporate law. The firm’s track record of being able to provide practical and customized strategies, either as a preventive or a curative measure, to achieve optimum tax benefit has given the firm a differentiating advantage.
BDB Law’s pool of clients is comprised of multinational enterprises, listed companies and large taxpayers registered with the Large Taxpayers Unit of the Philippines’ tax authority, most of which are from the following industries: banking and other financial institutions, power and energy, oil and gas, mining, real estate and construction, manufacturing and technology.