Item 7.01. Regulation FD Disclosure.
On July 13, 2021, Murray Kessler, Chief Executive Officer and President of
Perrigo Company plc ("Perrigo" or the "Company"), met with The Irish Times to
discuss Perrigo's transformation to a pure-play consumer self-care company.
Mr. Kessler also provided an update on the ongoing dialogue between Perrigo and
the Irish Office of the Revenue Commissioners ("Irish Revenue") regarding the
Company's pending appeal of the Notice of Amended Assessment dated November 29,
2018 ("NoA"), which claimed income tax payable in the amount of €1,636 million,
not including interest or penalties, if applicable. Perrigo has been advised
that the interview with Mr. Kessler will be embargoed until after the filing of
this Current Report on Form 8-K.
As previously reported, the NoA relates to the income tax treatment of the 2013
sale of Tysabri® intellectual property and related assets by Elan Pharma to
Biogen Idec. Elan Pharma recognized the receipts from that sale as trading
income in its Irish tax returns, consistent with its historical practice. Irish
Revenue has taken the position that the Tysabri® sale should be treated as a
capital transaction taxable at a 33% rate, rather than a trading transaction
taxable at a 12.5% rate. Perrigo strongly disagrees with this claim and has
appealed the NoA with the Irish Tax Appeals Commission. The appeal is currently
scheduled to be heard in November 2021.
Perrigo remains confident that Elan Pharma's original income tax position is
correct and would ultimately be confirmed through judicial process. However, in
light of the risk and delays inherent in any litigation, in April 2021, Perrigo
made a "without prejudice" written offer of settlement to Irish Revenue,
detailing a possible framework for resolving this dispute. While that offer was
not accepted, the Company's representatives continue to meet and correspond with
Irish Revenue and Perrigo anticipates further discussions with a view to
resolving these technical and complex matters of Irish tax law.
Recently, Irish Revenue acknowledged in writing that not all relevant facts were
known to them when they issued the NoA in 2018 and that, accordingly, Irish
Revenue would not object if the Appeal Commissioner were to make certain
adjustments reducing Irish Revenue's original assessment. Such adjustments would
reflect contingent royalty payments that were never received by Elan Pharma,
deductions for acquisition and development costs incurred, and allowable losses
and reliefs, and would, if allowed, result in an aggregate reduction of more
than €660 million (approximately 40%) from the income taxes claimed in the NoA
as issued. The reduced claim is not a settlement proposal or compromise by Irish
Revenue, but rather a confirmation that Irish Revenue would not object to
certain adjustments to the underlying assessment given facts now known to Irish
Revenue that were not known to Irish Revenue when they issued the NoA in 2018.
Accordingly, Perrigo believes that the maximum amount of income tax claims in
dispute is now reduced to less than €1.0 billion, not including any interest or
penalties, if applicable.
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