News Release 20 February 2018

ITC Leiden will join forces with Erasmus University Rotterdam

The International Tax Center Leiden (ITC Leiden) is pleased to announce that it has reached an understanding with Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) aimed at joining forces. The two are currently discussing the specific terms for accommodating ITC Leiden, with all of its Leiden- based and foreign taught programs, within Erasmus University Rotterdam later this year. At the same time, ITC Leiden wishes to express its gratitude to Leiden University for its support over the past 20 years which enabled ITC Leiden to become one of today’s leading academic centers for international tax studies.

Joining forces with Erasmus University Rotterdam creates unique opportunities for ITC Leiden. Erasmus University Rotterdam is a large, highly ranked, international research university, based in the dynamic and diverse city of Rotterdam. ITC Leiden will be able to build on the strengths of that university in the areas of law, economics and business management and to consolidate and expand ITC Leiden’s academic offerings. In addition, ITC Leiden will benefit from the broad experience of EUR in ‘valorization’, i.e. the process of using academic knowledge to create value for the society at large and/or business. Also, the ITC-EUR initiative fits well in the existing strategic alliance between the Leiden-Delft-Rotterdam universities in which they cooperate from the perspective of each university’s special strengths.

ITC Leiden will preserve its name along with its location and operation at the Rapenburg in Leiden and, further, will remain an organization that operates under its own flag. It will also continue its academic cooperation with Leiden University. An important element of this cooperation is that Leiden University will keep accommodating the Adv LLM Programs in International Tax Law and European Tax Law till 1 September 2019 and will also continue the engagement of its international tax teachers with ITC Leiden.

With respect to the new Transfer Pricing Adv LLM Program that ITC Leiden recently developed, Erasmus University Rotterdam will soon file an application for an EUR accreditation of this program with the NVAO (the Dutch-Flemish body for the accreditation of graduate and postgraduate university programs). It is expected that ITC Leiden will be able to effectively start the Transfer Pricing Program in 2019. Also for the current International Tax Law Adv LLM Program (in which the existing European Tax Law Adv LLM program will be merged), Erasmus University Rotterdam will apply for accreditation to offer this Program from 1 September 2019 on. In this way a smooth transition of the International Tax Law Adv LLM Program from Leiden University to Erasmus University Rotterdam is safeguarded.

Further developments will be timely communicated to all of the members of the ITC Leiden community. If you have any queries regarding ITC Leiden joining forces with Erasmus University Rotterdam, please do not hesitate to contact ITC Leiden’s chairman Kees van Raad at [email protected].

International Tax Center telephone +31 (0)71 751 01 30 Rapenburg 65 email: [email protected] 2311 GJ Leiden website: www.itc-leiden.nl Netherlands