Global Depository Receipts: Long form tax reclaim service for Global Depository receipts held in the Common Depository structure

Background

Global Depository Receipts are financial instruments issued by a bank to represent a foreign company's publicly traded securities. They are listed and traded on the local stock exchange while the actual shares of the company are held by a custodian bank in their original country.

The term “long form reclaim” reflects the process to recover the tax amounts withheld in excess at source from the respective issuer's local tax authorities. As part of Clearstream’s continuous efforts to improve its services, Clearstream has arranged, together with the DR agent (Globetax), for clients to be able to send their long form reclaim applications directly to Clearstream, provided that the agent offers this service.

Service process

Clients wishing to start the long form process via Clearstream should send an original version of the “Letter of request to Clearstream for reclaim of withholding tax on Global Depository Receipts” (attached at the end of this Announcement) duly completed and signed.

Upon receipt of the request, Clearstream will investigate the following details with its agent:

• Availability of a long form service for the particular event;
• Certification requirements for the particular beneficial owner; and
• Statutory deadline and Clearstream deadline to receive the original documentation;
• Fees that will be charged by the agent for the service.

Upon receipt of the above information from the agent, Clearstream will relay these details to its clients via Swift notification.

Deadline for receipt of documents

Clearstream must receive the original documents for a long form reclaim application no later than four months before the applicable market statutory deadline. Any reclaim application received after this deadline will be rejected by Clearstream.

Clearstream Fees

Clearstream will charge the standard reclaim per reclaim request as stipulated in the appropriate Clearstream fee schedule.

Important note: Clients are reminded that each long form reclaim request will be treated on a case-by-case basis with a minimum threshold amount that should cover the fees of both Clearstream and any fees charged by the agent (in the long form reclaim, that amount will not be considered). Although Clearstream will help its clients to mitigate rejections of the documents, neither Clearstream nor the agent accepts responsibility for the acceptance or non-acceptance of the reclaim by the tax authorities of the respective country. It remains the client’s responsibility to determine any entitlement to a refund of tax withheld, to complete the required forms correctly and to calculate the amount due.