Amanda Duque dos Santos, a research associate at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance, has been honoured with the Albert J. Rädler Medal 2017. The prize was awarded for her master’s thesis titled “Transfer-Pricing Rules and State Aid” in Brussels, on 19 April 2018, by Frits Sobels, adviser to the executive board of CFE Tax Advisers Europe.

The prize-winning master’s thesis, written during Amanda Duque dos Santos’ LLM studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, was supervised by Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Wolfgang Schön, director at the MPI for Tax Law and Public Finance.

Frits Sobels, on behalf of the CFE Academic Jury composed of Professors Michael Lang, Pasquale Pistone and Otmar Thoemmes, stated that they were “impressed by the author’s analysis of State Aid law as part of the EU legal framework and in particular the argument of how State Aid is placed within the context of the fundamental freedoms of the EU Treaty, in line with the approach pursued by Professor Wolfgang Schön. For good and convincing reasons, the author shines a critical light on the lack of separation between the criteria of ‘advantageous treatment’ and ‘selectivity’ in the EU Commission’s official communications on State Aid. The author reminds the EU Member States of their role and responsibility in creating a competitive tax environment that does not put the onus on the multinational enterprises that engage in cross-border activities within the EU”.

CFE Tax Advisers Europe is a Brussels-based association representing European tax advisers. The CFE Albert J Rädler Medal was launched in 2013 to encourage academic excellence among young tax students in the field of European taxation, and to recognise Professor Albert J Rädler’s outstanding contribution to the field of taxation.

More information of the CFE Award Albert J. Rädler Medal is available on the CFE website.

April 2018