Maples Group (previously Maples and Calder) is a multi-jurisdictional firm providing legal and financial services, headquartered in the

Cayman Islands The Cayman Islands () is a self-governing British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory, and the largest by population. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac and Little Cayman, which are located so ...

. It has offices in many financial centres around the world, including several tax neutral jurisdictions. Its law firm is a member of the offshore magic circle, and specialises in advising on the laws of the Cayman Islands,

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

and the

British Virgin Islands The British Virgin Islands (BVI), officially the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, US Virgin Islands and north-west ...

, across a range of legal services including commercial litigation, intellectual property, sport, and finance, in which the firm has a focus on the structuring of tax efficient legal structures (or vehicles).

History

MacDonald and Maples was founded by Jim MacDonald and John Maples. MacDonald later retired and Douglas Calder joined as a partner, resulting in the name of the firm being changed to Maples and Calder. Today it is referred to simply as Maples and is headquartered in Ugland House in the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands office was opened in the early 1960s, followed by the Hong Kong office in 1995. Three years later, the London office opened its doors, with the British Virgin Islands and Dubai office establishing a presence in 2004 and 2005 respectively. Maples and Calder opened a Dublin office in 2006. 2012 saw the opening of a second office in Asia, when their Singapore office opened in September 2012. Jonathan Green is the firm's global managing partner and is based in the Cayman Islands office. The firm rebranded from "Maples and Calder" to the "Maples Group" in 2019.

Practice areas

The principal focus is on tax management (e.g. structuring and domiciling of tax vehicles, corporate transactions for IP–based and Debt–based erosion and profit shifting (or BEPS) actions). Maples and Calder also offers a range of other tax focused legal services, including providing advice on major infrastructure and property development projects (domiciled in offshore tax havens or

corporate tax haven Corporate haven, corporate tax haven, or multinational tax haven is used to describe a jurisdiction that multinational corporations find attractive for establishing subsidiaries or incorporation of regional or main company headquarters, mostly due ...

s), and the establishment and structuring of a "physical presence" in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands and Dublin, including business licensing, real estate, immigration and employment law. In 2009, U.S. President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

, described the headquarters of the Maples Group, Ugland House, the then legal home of 12,000 U.S. corporations as: "That's either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam in the world".

Awards

Maples Group has maintained its position as the largest Cayman Islands law firm, holding top rankings for finance, corporate, investment funds and litigation in legal directories such as Chambers and Partners, Legal 500, and Practical Law Company (PLC), and is the only offshore magic circle law firm to ever achieve Tier 1 in every category of the International Financial Law Review (IFLR).

Locations

Maples Group maintains a multi-jurisdictional network of offices in leading Caribbean and Channel Islands offshore tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands,

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

, and

. As with other offshore magic circle law firms, Maples and Calder have also opened up offices in the major

s, and particularly

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

(see

Conduit and Sink OFCs Conduit OFC and sink OFC is an empirical quantitative method of classifying corporate tax havens, offshore financial centres (OFCs) and tax havens. Traditional methods for identifying tax havens analyse tax and legal structures for base eros ...

References

External links