Federal Court of Appeal Upholds Lower Court Decision in Marzen: Key Lessons for Canadian Taxpayers

On 29 January 2016, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) released its decision in the Marzen Artistic Aluminum case, which concerned the transfer pricing treatment of marketing fees paid to a taxpayer’s wholly owned foreign subsidiary. The FCA judgment reinforced certain issues decided by the Tax Court of Canada, including the importance of respecting contracts between separate legal entities and not inappropriately amalgamating separate and distinct entities.