Charles Russell Speechlys—James Stewart

Charles Russell Speechlys has announced the appointment of James Stewart as a partner in its corporate tax and incentives team.

James is a corporate tax specialist joining from Sheridans, where he was a partner. He is a chartered tax adviser and has advised clients on the tax aspects of a broad spectrum of real estate transactions (both commercial and residential), including direct sales and acquisitions, corporate real estate transactions and real estate finance. He also has significant M&A tax experience, with particular focus on the technology sector, including negotiation and drafting of all tax aspects of transactional work.

He also brings experience in venture capital and structuring-related advice spanning across income tax, corporation tax, stamp tax implications of various structuring matters, and much more.

James will predominantly work with the firm’s corporate, real estate and private client teams to offer corporate tax advice to new and existing clients, and explore opportunities for corporate to work with other teams and our international offices to win new work for the firm. 

Commenting on his appointment, James said: ‘I am very excited to be joining the team. It’s clearly a dynamic firm with strong capabilities across transactional, advisory and contentious. It was clear to me from the very start that the firm takes a joined-up approach to matters, involving experts from all sorts of disciplines and backgrounds where needed. That was a real draw for me, and I’m looking forward to collaborating with colleagues from different practices to carry out the best possible work for clients.’

David Collins, partner, who is responsible for the firm’s business advisory & transaction services division, said: ‘We’re delighted to welcome James to the division. His broad-based corporate tax expertise, and in particular his experience advising on corporate real estate transactions, will be invaluable to the team as we continue to build out our transaction capabilities in line with our private capital-led strategy.’

Robert Birchall, partner and head of the corporate tax and incentives practice, added: ‘James adds significant technical ability and experience to our team and we are very pleased to welcome him into the firm. our corporate tax and incentives practice is exceptionally busy at the moment and continues to grow at pace—the skills and expertise that James brings with him, especially on real estate tax matters, will create significant value for a number of our clients.’