INTM266160 - Non-residents trading in the UK: Treaty permanent establishment: UK common law

UK common law varies from European civil law codes

The majority of European countries have civil law codes whereas the UK has a common law code. Any matters of interpretation of undefined terms used in the OECD Model Treaty, Article 5 or any other article of a treaty should be interpreted in the UK under UK law or at least common meaning. The civil law concept of agency is different from that under common law in that civil law will not usually regard the actions of an agent as though they were the actions of the principal. Civil law separates the relationship between the principal and the agent on the one hand and that between the agent and the third party (including a customer) on the other. Thus civil law countries do not, as the UK does, necessarily see the presence of the non- resident principal in the actions of the resident agent. In the UK, under common law, we interpret any actions carried out by an agent as having been performed for the principal and binding the principal in the same way as though they had carried out those actions themselves. For example, a contract arranged by an agent in the UK to deliver goods owned by a foreign principal to a customer would be treated for UK tax purposes as though the foreign principal themselves had contracted in the UK for the delivery. This is the case, regardless of whether the contract is written in the name of the principal or in the name of the agent (commentary to model treaty article 5(5), paragraph 32.1 of July 2010 version).