TRANSFER PRICING

Our RoyaltyRange royalty rates database is the preferred source of comparables data for European transfer pricing practitioners. We provide organizations with high-quality, easy-to-use, OECD compliant data on recent comparable license agreements, which can be used for transfer pricing and other purposes.

Why use RoyaltyRange’s database for transfer pricing?

Transactions involving intangibles often require complex transfer pricing analyses. Conducting a transfer pricing analysis has become increasingly difficult in recent years, due to developments in transfer pricing legislations by many European countries, with the help of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD and local tax authorities highlight the importance of finding the most reliable comparables data for the purposes of conducting a transfer pricing analyses, which is why organizations across Europe choose to use RoyaltyRange’s royalty rates database to assist with this.

The OECD has been developing guidance on the transfer pricing of intangibles for several years. Recently, this has become a greater area of focus and importance as a result of the base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) initiative. The OECD’s Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations 2017, which incorporates Guidance on Transfer Pricing Aspects of Intangibles (Action 8 of the BEPS initiative), emphasizes the importance of comparability and the level of detail of comparables data. This is especially relevant for European transfer pricing purposes due to the limited number of potentially comparable agreements available for the analyses.

Uncontrolled transactions

Only comparable transactions between unrelated parties should be taken into account when conducting a transfer pricing analysis. The agreements in the RoyaltyRange database were typically concluded between unrelated parties, giving your organization the uncontrolled transactions data it requires.

We assess more than 50 comparability factors

Transfer pricing practitioners often need to manually analyze tens or hundreds of potentially comparable agreements just to find a few that are relevant for transfer pricing analysis purposes. The RoyaltyRange database does all of this for you, so that you can focus on conducting your transfer pricing analysis.

The Guidance on Transfer Pricing Aspects of Intangibles outlines a number of factors that should be taken into account in a comparability analysis. These include: exclusivity; extent and duration of legal protection; geographic scope; useful life; stage of development; rights to enhancements, revisions and updates; and expectations of future benefits. The RoyaltyRange database analyzes all of these factors and more.

The RoyaltyRange database analyzes each agreement for more than 50 standardized comparability factors, which are presented in an easy-to-understand format. The information we provide is detailed and quick to use – with no further significant manual analysis of the agreements necessary (we recommend to only double check the reports for accuracy).

The most recent license agreements

The RoyaltyRange database contains only the most recent license agreements, in order to ensure comparability. One of the most important comparability factors for transfer pricing analyses is the licensing period of an agreement. Older agreements may technically be comparable, but they may not be suitable for transfer pricing analysis due to factors including market maturity, industry cycles and practice differences. For example, IT license agreements that date back to the 1990s and feature royalty rates of 20–30 percent may not be comparable, despite having a comparable license object and royalty base.

Comparable agreements for Europe as a licensed territory

When conducting a European transfer pricing analysis, organizations need to find a sufficient number of potentially comparable agreements that cover Europe, or at least Global, as a licensed territory. Agreements that cover territories other than Europe may not be sufficiently comparable for European analysis purposes. Local market comparables provide the most reliable indication of arm’s length remuneration for intangibles.

The RoyaltyRange database contains agreements that specifically cover certain European countries as licensed territories, or Europe as a licensed territory in Global agreements. This enables organizations to access sufficiently comparable agreements for their transfer pricing analyses.

Data for your DEMPE analysis

The Guidance on Transfer Pricing Aspects of Intangibles focuses on entities within a multinational enterprise (MNE) group that undertake or control functions and risks relating to the development, enhancement, maintenance, protection and exploitation of intangibles (DEMPE). The RoyaltyRange database provides data that will assist with your organization’s DEMPE analysis for transfer pricing.

The OECD attaches particular significance to the design and control of research and marketing programs, management and control of budgets, ongoing quality control, and control over strategic decisions regarding intangible development programs and the defense and protection of intangibles.

It clarifies that members of an MNE group performing important functions, controlling economically significant risks and contributing assets, as determined through the accurate delineation of the actual transaction, will be entitled to an arm’s length return reflecting the value of their contributions. In other words, each member of the MNE group should receive‎ arm’s length compensation for the functions it performs. You can use RoyaltyRange’s premier-quality data to help you carry out your DEMPE analysis.

Our database enables NACE and SIC searches

European transfer pricing analyses typically use European-specific NACE codes. For analyses of intangible transactions, the US standard industrial classification (SIC) codes are also used.

The RoyaltyRange database is specifically designed to allow for searches using both European NACE and US SIC codes. Such options may provide greater consistency with other benchmarking searches.

Our data is sufficiently detailed to permit evaluation of the intangibles

Paragraph 6.130 of the OECD’s Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations 2017 states that it is important to assess whether publicly available data drawn from commercial databases is detailed enough to permit specific features of relevant intangibles to be evaluated. If reliable uncontrolled transactions cannot be identified, a transactional profit split method may sometimes be used to determine the arm’s length allocation of profits for the use of intangibles.

The RoyaltyRange database was specifically designed to address the above-mentioned issues and facilitate European comparable uncontrolled price transfer pricing studies. We provide easy-to-use, reliable and detailed data on the most recent uncontrolled transactions in Europe and around the world. Our data is fully compliant with the OECD’s regulations and will facilitate the complex transfer pricing analysis of intangibles.

If you would like to find out more about how our data can help with your organization’s transfer pricing analysis, or you want to set up a subscription to our database, contact us at RoyaltyRange today.