Interlegal supports commercial yacht purchase

The Client filed a request to Interlegal on legal support of yacht purchase for the further commercial use.

One of the Client’s wishes was to preserve the yacht current status and her further use in yacht races. It was essential also to preserve the yacht commercial status from the financial aspect: under the EU legislation the yacht delivered to the EU customs territory for commercial use shall be released from import VAT.

So the purchase process faced the problem of correct organization of chartering structure. The lawyers’ task was to determine jurisdiction of yacht owner registration, the yacht flag and correct organization of chartering in other countries than the company/yacht registration place.

Interlegal lawyers performed comparative law analysis of chartering in two popular European jurisdictions (Greece and Malta), followed by drafting the advice and by the Client’s decision concerning further work.

In particular, lawyers analyzed registration terms and specification of taxation on chartering in such countries, as well as studied registration rules and chartering taxation issues in other Mediterranean countries.

Interlegal tasks upon this project included, inter alia, the company registration in foreign jurisdiction, registration in tax authorities, opening bank account, yacht registration and insurance, labour relations with crew members and others.

It is one of candidates for the most interesting and the largest projects in Interlegal yachting practice for this year.