About
Prof Dr Vikram Chand is a Professor of Tax Law & Policy at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), Switzerland. He currently also serves as the Program Director of the Executive Program in Transfer Pricing offered by UNIL.
His main areas of research, teaching and consulting expertise relate to Pillar Two (Global Minimum Tax Rules), Pillar 1 (Amount A and Amount B), Transfer Pricing, Tax Treaties, Tax Controversy Management and the intersection between International tax law and other areas of International Law (e.g. International Trade Law).
His expertise is evidenced by an extensive list of publications. For example, on the research front, he has published many articles in top peer-reviewed journals (such as the World Tax Journal, Intertax, British Tax Review and the International Tax Studies) or books (either monographs or edited books) with International Publishers (such as Kluwer Law, IBFD or Schulthess). His doctoral thesis - The Interaction of Domestic Anti-Avoidance Rules with Tax Treaties - was also shortlisted for the prestigious Frans Vanistendael Award that is conferred by the IBFD.
On the teaching front, Prof Chand teaches Swiss Tax Law (in French) at the Bachelor level and International Tax Law at the Master level (Tax Treaties, European Tax Law, Transfer Pricing, Pillar Two and Pillar I rules). Moreover, he teaches in several Executive Education Programs in these areas.
He has also trained senior tax / policy officials from several countries including officials from Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Croatia, China, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal, Netherlands, Russia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda and Ukraine. The trainings were done mostly on all BEPS related matters (eg. minimum standards – such as Action 6, Actions 8-10 as well as Action 13 and Action 5 – and non-minimum standards such as Actions 3 and Action 4).
As a result of the above activities, Prof Dr Vikram Chand is regularly approached for consulting / capacity-building projects by Governments, International Associations and International Organisations. For example, he was appointed twice as an expert on Pillar Two matters for the Indonesian Government (in collaboration with Expertise France). He is also mandated by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to assess the impact of the Two Pillar Solution and ongoing International Tax Developments on the Airline Industry. Additionally, he is mandated by the UN FSDO as a consultant on Transfer Pricing matters to develop material that will be used by competent authorities of various developing countries in Mutual Agreement Procedures. Moreover, he is regularly invited to either participate in events / trainings organised by the OECD, UN and EU Commission or express his views on new proposals (eg. he was approached by the EU Commission to provide his views on the recently released Transfer Pricing Directive). Quite recently, he was also appointed as a BEPS Advisor for the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
From time to time, Prof Chand is also approached by Consulting firms, Large MNEs and Law Firms for independent expert opinions and professional support / training projects on his key areas of expertise. The expert opinions on Tax Treaties and Transfer Pricing are mainly used in complex international tax law cases (cases which are either in litigation, MAP or Arbitration). The opinions are also used in the context of mitigating international tax law risks (eg. Advance Rulings or Bilateral APA applications).