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Legal Expert Board

SEPTEMBER 2014

Aviation Law

LM takes a look at Aviation law and the legal implications surrounding it by speaking to Dr Marilyn Mifsud, LL.D, a Business and Securities Associate within the firm PKF Malta. PKF Malta has been operative in Malta for 25 plus years and continually invests into various fields across the board including aviation and has been successful in attracting to the Maltese aircraft register several prestigious aircrafts as well as successfully enrolling various highly qualified aviation personnel into our specialised taxation regimes.

Dr Marilyn Mifsud, LL.D PKF Malta

35, Mannarino Road, Birkirkara BKR 9080, Malta, Europe

Tel: +356 21 484373 or +356 21 493041 Fax number: +356 21 484375 Email: mmifsud@pkfmalta.com Email: info@pkfmalta.com Website: www.pkfmalta.com Website: www.tunemalta.com

Do you foresee the need for further legislative change in the next 12-24 months, if so what legal implications related with Aviation Law - national or international issues- current developments ongoing comment:

Definitely, and this is very much an active area bubbling with change right now. Of recent there is an ongoing overhaul of the Maltese Aircraft Registration Act that is presently underway. The underlying impetuses for this are various and have at their core the securitization of better protection for the players involved in this industry including the enhancing of rules governing many popular structures such as lessee-lessor set-ups. This project is still in the making but it is safe to say that it is successfully at play in tandem with others such as and in particular initiatives to

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ratify the Aviation Section Understanding on Export Credits for Civil Aircraft of the Capetown Convention intended to level the playing field for aircraft manufacturers, aircraft purchasers (including airlines and aircraft lessees) and governments by prescribing a set of uniform terms for aircraft-related financing transactions that are supported by a Participant’s Export Credit Agency (ECA), and by closing the pricing gap between the export credit agency and commercial financing markets. Members are called ‘ASU Participants’, therefore qualifying to its advantages. Two of these advantages are what are referred to as the Minimum Premium Rate (MPR) and the Cape Town Convention Discount (CTC discount).

Although the European Union is an ASU Participant, it is so in its capacity of a