People
Meet our people.
Executive Board
Costas Savva | Partner, VAT and Corporate Tax
Costas has considerable experience in advising on international tax law and corporate tax issues. He focuses his practice on the tax aspects of inbound and outbound business operations with a strong track record in cross-border investment structures and structured finance. Costas also specializes in Transfer Pricing, with experience in a broad range of transfer pricing matters. He advises on financial transactions (e.g., cash pool, debt pricing) and intragroup services.
Costas holds an LL.B. from Frederick University and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Taxation from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU) in Austria. He is a qualified fellow member of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (ACCA) and a member of the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus (ICPAC). He was trained by KPMG Cyprus, where he later served as a senior manager at the Nicosia office.
Costas serves as the Cypriot correspondent of the IBFD holding regime. He is also the co-author of the book Limiting Base Erosion edited by Professor Michael Lang. He regularly publishes on a wide variety of tax topics.
Christos Theophilou | Partner, Private Clients and Corporate Tax
Christos specialises in private clients and corporate tax issues (including transfer pricing) with an international dimension, such as private equity structuring, cross-border investments, structured finance, IP structuring and international trade.
Christos received his Master of Laws (MSc) in Tax Law from Oxford University. He was trained from a Big4 company and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, the Advanced Diploma in International Taxation (ADIT) of the UK Chartered Institute of Taxation, as well as being a qualified Chartered Accountant in England & Wales. He holds an LLB at Frederick University Cyprus. Christos is a contributor to international tax publications such as IBFD, Tax Notes lnternational, Bloomberg ΒΝΑ, International Tax Review and IFA as a national reporter. Furthermore, Christos is currently a member of the Τax Policy and Strategy committee of lnstitute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus.
Christos is also a freelance lecturer for Τolley's (LexisNexis) in Greece, Cyprus and Ukraine, where his main areas are ADIT Paper 1 Principles of lnternational Tax. Christos is a well-known personality in the tax world, where he is a regular speaker at a wide range of conferences.
Demis Ioannou | Partner, Transfer Pricing and Corporate Tax
Demis specialises in corporate income tax law, transfer pricing and international tax (treaty) law. He has a strong track record with clients in advising on transfer pricing issues and in complex corporate tax law issues. His extensive interest on comparative income tax law (US, UK, Canada and Australia) offers him a unique advantage in solving complex tax issues in Cyprus.
Demis received his Master of Laws (MSc) in Tax Law from Oxford University. He was trained from a Big4 company and holds a first-class Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from the UK, as well as being a qualified Chartered Accountant in England & Wales. He holds an LLB at Frederick University Cyprus.
Demis’ dissertation in Oxford focuses on analysing the OECD BEPS Project and was supervised by Richard Collier a senior tax advisor of the OECD on transfer pricing issues. In addition, he published a paper for the Cambridge Tax Law History Conference edited by Professor Peter Harris (University of Cambridge) on income tax fundamentals and the origins of the Cypriot income tax law. Demis is a co-representative for IFA (YIN) in Cyprus.
Gaspar Lopes Dias | Partner, Transfer Pricing and International Tax
Gaspar has experience in a broad range of transfer pricing and international tax matters including financial operations, business reorganisations and IP structuring, advising multinationals in various industries and investment funds.
He joined Taxand Cyprus in 2021 from the tax practice of Baker & McKenzie in London, having previously worked at Loyens & Loeff in Luxembourg, and KPMG Belgium. Gaspar holds an LL.B civil law (Nova University Lisbon), LL.M International Tax (Tilburg University), MSc Taxation (University of Oxford), ADIT member UK CIOT, and is an IFA member (UK Branch).
Some of his titles include:
- LOPES DIAS, Gaspar, Chapter 22: Luxembourg in Implementing Key BEPS Actions: Where Do We Stand? – peer reviewed book following the 2017 Rust Conference, IBFD, WU Tax Law and Policy Series, vol. 12, Dec. 2019.
- LOPES DIAS, Gaspar, The concept of Debt-Claim as the Key Distinguishing Factor between Dividend and Interest Income in the OECD MC, IBFD Vol. 17 Deriv. & Fin. Inst., Issue 2, Feb. 2015.
- [BOOK] LOPES DIAS, Gaspar, Tax Arbitrage through Cross-Border Financial Engineering, Kluwer Law International, Series on International Taxation No. 50, Feb. 2015.