A UK company in the IT services sector was being sold to a US buyer and the seller pro actively sought insurance against a risk it had been mitigating within its business.

the UK company had a presence in Poland where various IT contractors performed various services to the UK company; individuals were engaged on contracts of varying lengths. As employment/self-employment is an important topic of debate from a tax perspective in the US and UK, the parties were alive to the risk of the self-employed contractors being treated as employees for tax purposes.

We issued a policy to the target business to protect it against any unexpected challenge to the self-employment status of the individual contractors. We worked collaboratively with the business to understand its operating model and how it managed the risk which enabled us to issue the policy and take the issue off the table for the parties to the transaction.