Ramin Tabibzadeh joins A&M's Performance Improvement practice as a Managing Director in Los Angeles. He specializes in helping Global 1000 and mid-market companies achieve top-line growth and tangible bottom line improvements through operational cost optimizations and effective technology implementations.

Many retailers are failing to assess the true contribution their stores make as part of the multi-channel business model and customer journey, which in turn can result in poorly informed store closure programmes, resulting in sub-optimal formats and further decline.

As is often the case in practical tax planning, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” On April 4, 2016, the IRS and Treasury issued proposed regulations under the authority of Section 385 of the Internal Revenue Code. Numerous commentators have questioned the IRS and Treasury’s authority to create several of the rules in these regulations. As a result, their validity may or may not be upheld in court, if the regulations are finalized as proposed. Unfortunately, while the possibility of a future court battle between taxpayers and the IRS over these regulations may be of major academic interest, it is of no present or practical help to internal tax departments that are undoubtedly asking the questions, “What do these regulations mean to my company? What should I be doing about them now?”

Phil Beckett was recently appointed as a Managing Director in our Global Forensic and Dispute Services practice, based in London. Mr. Beckett’s appointment underscores the growing demand from corporates in the UK and Europe for operational forensic expertise which can help to preempt and respond to concerns such as cyber-security and bribery.

Alvarez & Marsal Taxand, LLC, an affiliate of leading global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal, announced that industry veteran Laurie Wik has joined the firm’s tax practice as a Senior Director in San Francisco.

Our Executive Compensation and Benefits practice welcomes George F. O’Donnell who will serve as a Managing Director in Greenwich, Connecticut. An expert in structuring compensation programs for senior management and outside directors, Mr. O’Donnell’s legal and accounting background strengthens A&M’s offering for professional services firms.

Drug overdose deaths in the United States averaged a record 118 per day in 2014, with prescription opioids (e.g., Vicodin, Percocet ) accounting for 40 to 50 percent of the total. Heroin, formerly the scourge of poor and urban areas, has now penetrated middle-to-high-income suburban areas with a low cost, high potency product. Fentanyl, with 40 to 50 times the potency of pure heroin, is also available. Alarming headlines, combined with growing evidence of death and devastation, has led to an outcry for additional legislation, manpower and funding to address substance abuse and dependency disorders.

On April 4, 2016, the IRS and Treasury released two sets of proposed and temporary regulations that caused various taxpayers, investment bankers and large sectors of the investment community, particularly in the pharmaceutical and biomed sectors, to sound alarm bells.

Performance Management is an umbrella term encompassing the processes and applications that support strategy development, planning and forecasting, financial management, profitability management, and reporting and analytics. EPM, CPM and BI are popular acronyms referring to Performance Management. At A&M, we call it Integrated Performance Management (IPM) because we believe that the core of management excellence and achieving the success of our clients’ programs is integration.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has been busy of late producing internal guidance for its examiners (both specialists and non-specialists) for use in auditing foreign and cross-border transactions.

Alvarez & Marsal Taxand, LLC, an affiliate of leading global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal, has augmented its dedicated Private Client Services group. Joining A&M Taxand as part of this expansion are seasoned tax experts Erik Christianson and Ambrosio Gonzalez, both Senior Directors based in Miami.

To understand compensation practices in the energy sector, specifically, for exploration and production (E&P) companies, Alvarez & Marsal’s Executive Compensation and Benefits Practice examined the latest proxy statements for 100 of the largest E&P companies in the U.S.

Stress Test Scenarios and Forecasts for Market Uncertainty: In the second paper of our two-part series in A&M Readings in Quantitative Risk Management, we continue to examine the behavior of human beings in times of financial stress and how the changes in human behavior impact stress testing and the management of capital at banks.

The proposed EU-U.S. Privacy Shield is designed to replace the now defunct Safe Harbor scheme which was developed to protect the transfer of personal data between the EU and the United States. However, the framework only addresses one aspect of risk in dealing with data.

Because of its magnitude and complexity, U.S. tax law is rife with ‘‘traps for the unwary.’’