Expertise

Corporate Tax Law
Company Law
Corporate Finance Law
 

Overview

John Vella is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation and a member of the Faculty of Law at Oxford. John studied law at the University of Malta (BA and LLD) and the University of Cambridge (LLM and PhD). Following the completion of his PhD he joined the Faculty of Law at Oxford as Norton Rose Career Development Fellow in Company Law where he taught Company Law, Corporate Finance Law, EC Law and Roman Law, before moving to his current post. John has been a Program Affiliate Scholar at New York University and has acted as a co-arbitrator in a tax dispute before the ICC International Court of Arbitration. In November 2011 he gave evidence before the House of Lords EU Sub- Committee A (Economic and Financial Affairs and International Trade) on Financial Transaction Taxes. His recent research has focused on revenue authorities' discretionary powers and the taxation and regulation of the financial sector in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

Book chapters

J Vella, J Freedman and G Loomer, 'Analyzing the enhanced relationship between corporate taxpayers and revenue authorities: a UK case study' in L Oats (ed), A fieldwork guide to taxation (Routledge 2012)

J Vella and J Freedman, 'HMRC’s Management of the U.K. Tax System: The Boundaries of Legitimate Discretion ' in J Freedman, C Evans and R Krever (eds), The Delicate Balance: Revenue Authority Discretions and the Rule of Law (IBFD 2011)

J Vella, 'Sparking Regulatory Competition in European Company Law: A Response' in R De la Feria and S Vogenauer (eds), Prohibition of Abuse of Law: A New General Principle of EU Law (Hart Publishing 2011)

J Vella and D Prentice, ‘Some aspects of capital maintenance law in the UK’ in M Tison et al (ed), Essays in honour of Eddy Wymeersch - Perspectives in Company Law and Financial Regulation, CUP, (2009)

J Vella, J Freedman and G Loomer, ‘Moving Beyond Avoidance? Tax Risk and the Relationship between large Business and HMRC’ in J Freedman (ed), Beyond Boundaries: Developing Approaches to Tax Avoidance and Tax Risk Management, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, (2008)

Journal articles

J Vella, 'The Financial Transaction Tax Debate: Some Questionable Claims' (2012) Volume 47 Intereconomics 90

J Vella, C Fuest and T Schmidt-Eisenlohr, 'The EU Commission’s Proposal for a Financial Transaction Tax' (2011) British Tax Review 607

J Vella, J Freedman and G Loomer, ‘Corporate Tax Risk and Tax Avoidance: New Approaches’, (2009) British Tax Review, 74-116.

J Vella, ‘Sham Transactions’, Lloyds Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly (2008), 4 (Nov), 488-512

J Vella, ‘Departing from the legal substance of transactions in the corporate field: the Ramsay Approach beyond the tax sphere’, (2007) 7(2) Journal of Corporate Law Studies, 243-283

Working papers

J Vella, J Freedman and G Loomer, ‘Moving Beyond Avoidance? Tax Risk and the Relationship between Large Business and HMRC’, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation Report, June 2007 (Cited in the New York Review of Books, January 15 2009)

Unpublished work

J Vella, ‘Structured Finance in Malta’, (2001) (approx. 65,000 words). Unpublished document on file with the University of Malta. Submitted in partial fulfilment of the Doctor of Laws degree.

Case notes
J Vella and J Freedman, 'Revenue Guidance: The Limits of Discretion and Legitimate Expectations' (2012) 128 Law Quarterly Review 192   [Case Note]