[Music] hi ed peter thanks for joining us today um i think it'd be great to start with some introductions so in no particular order ed the floor is yours thanks very much tim it's great to be here so my name's ed allison wright i'm a director at world trade center gibraltar and uh we're uh a big developer in gibraltar um and we're focused on trying to make sure that we bring uh talent here uh for the sectors that that are strongest so gaming sector being one of them um i'm a chancellor today in the town planner by trade but we get get involved in everything well it's uh it's good to have you and uh peter uh and pizza montegrifo i'm one of the senior partners at hassan's law firm which is one of the most established law firms in gibraltar my background is mostly in company commercial and transactional work but i was very involved with the early days of the setting of the setting up of the gaming industry gibraltar the internet gaming section gibraltar and it's been a very exciting period that i had privileged to be part of throughout that journey so uh that's my background i also had some background in politics in the previous life that's long forgotten but uh my love for law is also wrecked you know replicated for my love for gibraltar um well yeah as you both mentioned kind of we're our main topic is gibraltar today and i think a great starting point a general one would be a one for you peter how would you describe your volta right now as a gaming club and a place of business at this moment okay so gibraltar many people who uh sort of are in this space would recognize gibraltar as a sort of premier jurisdiction sitting within the european theater when it comes to internet gambling and gaming's gaming propositions generally gibraltar's approach has always been to attract quality we've depended on having a very close relationship between industry government and regulators and of course professionals and that's created an ecosystem which we think is pretty unique because we've actually got people on the ground that bring expertise to gibraltar so we've had a lot of success um over the last 10 years in particular and then we faced brexit and coveted a lot of the companies have had to develop and to adapt to that but the mood here is very exciting i think the root here is one which sees opportunities going forward uh and that's certainly something that we'd like to think plays to our strengths because we're in a process of constant reinvention and that agility i think uh is understood all around and will serve us well so great excitement a lot to be done as always but great energy and enthusiasm yeah that's that's encouraging to hear but as you mentioned peter we can't fail to talk about that pandemic and kobe 19. and uh one for you ed um how has uh gibraltar and the gaming industry transitioned through this uh undoubtedly tough period so it's an interesting uh question and i agree with peter that we um we've got to remember where gibraltar came from before the pandemic as well in this in answering this question i mean first off up up to the pandemic uh gibraltar's enjoyed uh you know more than five percent annual nominal gdp growth uh for around 30 years uh which is is really astounding particularly in this geographical region um and i think when the when the pandemic came as a result of like peter was saying the challenges that we're addressing in respect of brexit um particularly you know connected to the european union with the land border with spain we we noticed that a lot of our gaming companies already had brexit planning um contingencies in place and that essentially meant that they had work from home strategies you know before most people knew what work from home really meant um in sort of 2019 which would be enacted if for instance there was a hard border which or or a border that wasn't fluid enough for trade and what we essentially saw happening in march 2020 was that um all of these companies that had gone through that process of planning actually just press the green button on on their work from home policies as a result of the pandemic and i think that brought some some crucial time for gaming companies here because it allowed them that additional time to pivot towards the consumer uh that was stuck at home and also to start planning uh contingency for uh a temporary pause in live sports uh so i think it really puts put jib companies in a strong position and a strong footing into 2021 sure yeah again sort of um voice for encouragement there when it comes to gibraltar um i wanted to ask a little bit about how both your firms kind of fit into this picture we'll stay with you ed for now um world trade center gibraltar you know how does it fit into kind of this this ecosystem that we're looking at in gibraltar at the moment yeah well i'm building on what peter said actually we you know we've really made the most of the fact that this uh this ecosystem has sort of fostered specific sector growth and as a result of that we've uh made a point of providing incubated space within world trade center world so that's done through regis who established here at the same time as we opened our building in 2017. um and one thing that we did notice that you could have you could have guessed might happen but we were uh very pleased to see it happen is that there was integration between the supply chains so when we opened our building in 2017 february 17 we were 90 98 full after a month um and about 40 of those were new entrants to gibraltar but more interestingly what we started to find is that we were we we had service providers within our building uh for the gaming companies that were established here and they obviously saw that strong ecosystem link in jib and they thought you know what what's the point in us uh getting on getting on planes and traveling to see our clients why don't we just have a build yeah an office in the same building meet them for a coffee make them for breakfast lunch um and and that's really worked well for particularly the gaming industry here in gibraltar um so you know we we work to try and create a home for business um but also i think uh importantly and we can talk about this a bit more um lifestyle so as a property developer company we we also focus not only on the building office space but on resort space and residential accommodation and homes and uh that's extremely important when we're trying to attract talent in a competitive world so you know it's it's also the family of those employees and employers that come here that want to enjoy jib they want to have good things to do and good social activities and amenities and that's a really important ingredient which which we're trying to bring into the mix as well absolutely and peter a similar question for you where does hassans fit into the the gibraltar jigsaw right so hassan's has had the privilege really of being one of the leading players we like to think in spearheading the development of gibraltar the last decades and gaming in particular over the last decade and a half our interest has been to bring to gibraltar quality operators that are resolved to be here for the long term we see that journey is a journey with our clients and when they then actually diversify in gibraltar which they do in a number of different ways it can be from private client work because as you know we're hearing lifestyle propositions are important lifestyle decisions and private client work all the way through the corporate listings et cetera i mean hassan has been part of that exercise throughout and we like to build expertise combining both local and external influences i think that's one of the strengths that i'd like to bring to also this discussion that uh as a firm and i think as a jurisdiction we very much need the input of external people who come to enrich and develop gibraltar gibraltar has no resistance on the country has a very embracing welcome to people who come here to actually make gibraltar a base from which they can become successful and it's it's a pleasure for us to be part of those exercises and those are those um experiences with our clients sure yeah so we can see where both your companies fit in there and and uh something you've already mentioned which like covered we kind of can't go without not mentioning is a it's something that's been talked about but yeah it's brexit um not much of a spoiler alert that but uh um a question for both of you i think we'll go back to peter first um what is the current state of affairs with gibraltar and the eu given the impact of brexit and this is a question that kind of isn't justifiable to gaming i think people in general are quite interested to know the world across yeah so as many people might not have realized we were part of the eu so we were different to say jersey or guernsey we were part of the eu with the uk and so therefore when the uk decided to leave we although we voted in very large numbers to stay had to leave okay so in a sense uh that was initially not a decision we would have welcomed we would have welcomed continued membership um but of course what's really important for gibraltar is the ability to react and remain agile and to be robust as a jurisdiction and none of that is threatened by brexit brexit has nothing to hit or impact on the core strength of your broadcast what was very important and this something ed has pointed out is that there should be continued fluidity in our frontier in our frontier state because a very large proportion of our workers and our employees live in spain and work in gibraltar and this interaction between the two economies is really important so what's really interesting and i think um reassuring is that at the end of last year an agreement in principle was announced which will look towards integrating gibraltar into the so-called schengen area which is an area of travel as you all know which allows freedom of movement between all the parts of europe that are part of shame so we're hoping to see those arrangements put into a treaty by june of this year and it might slip into later on in the year franklia frankly given the timescale that's the the aspirational target date a web treaty should confirm complete fluidity of movement between gibraltar and the rest of the schengen area and i can tell you i know it sounds a little of a hard sell but the excitement that is generating is very palpable i think a lot of people do see that um the attraction of being in mainland europe uh with essentially a british system of law and with the robustness that comes with uh with all that but nonetheless a connection into physical connection or mobility to europe that's a very attractive proposition so if the outcome of brexit for us is that we entrench that mobility in a treaty that will be an incredible platform from which then to build i think we can do more things after that frankly uh and it'd be a mistake to be too ambitious early on because you need to stretch a track record in this new environment but if we get that treaty in place and all the signals are good i think that will be a great starting point absolutely and um ed what about your perspective on this and brexit gibraltar eu and sort of the views of world trade center gibraltar well i mean i can cooperate what peter was saying i was really surprised to hear from our teams that we've had 11 new leases signed since the end of last year and we had a huge amount of interest through uh the pandemic lockdown period um i think that is very much due to that sort of palpability that we're talking about in terms of the the opportunity that people are spotting um but also from i think from call myself outside of perhaps yes from someone that's been in gym for just five years um one thing that i've certainly noticed after arriving here is is a a real sense of common purpose when a challenge is presented to people in the gibraltar um and this is seen not only with brexit but also with the pandemic and i think that that sort of that that feeling of common purpose i think really helps when you're dealing with a an agile policy base and a very um flexible jurisdiction that's that's got the ability to move quite quickly uh to to to adapting times so i i think you know those points um coupled with with the opportunities of brexit i think are really exciting for gibraltar in the next uh in the next coming months and years no absolutely again painting an encouraging picture for gibraltar um one one point i wanted to return to which which you kind of both touched on earlier was kind of the lifestyle um but a question this one's in the peter um how is gibraltar currently positioned from a lifestyle perspective but also uh something i'm sure you came to about the tax perspective okay so gibraltar is like we like to believe that it is tax competitive right which that doesn't mean that we promote zero percent tax uh tax has to be paid um there are others say there are nurses to be paid and policemen to be also you know remunerated and we're all part of the community and we've got to pay a fair amount but gibraltar is highly tax competitive all be within that environment so um some taxes we've never had at all i mean i won't get technical but for example we've never had capital gains tax right and we're finding many many clients who are having to pay tax on income at all that's fine because it's fair and the income tax intervals are 10 for companies that's very you know double-digit but very very competitive but the capital gains tax advantage is very critical when you're building a business and you're then looking to dispose underlying interests actually normally sell them and therefore you create a capital gain and that's actually a very interesting feature as if we've never had capital gains we don't have inheritance tax for example for individuals again a very simple thing because you know many other countries are inheriting sex but many do and in europe particularly they have very strong in inheritance taxes some countries so i need to broadly like to think that it is tax competitive it is however a jurisdiction which in some areas provides very very important niche opportunities uh and properly structured then gibraltar is a great place in which you can undertake an international business but we think the days of zero tax of over and over aggressive focus on tax uh are counted and a business has to be based on more than just tax it's going to be based on the robust regulation as i said before on making sure you have people in the jurisdiction with which we hope you can interact in particular governments and regulators uh and uh taxes only a cost a cost of many other costs and many other factors that have been you know taken into account certainly yeah and we will touch on a few different topics uh kind of intertwined with gibraltar um i'll i'll give you guys soon the opportunity for kind of a final word kind of for both of you but one one topic i wanted to last one i wanted to raise before then is that is one for red um how was the rise of other industries such as kind of cryptocurrency and fintech impacted gibraltar and how has this kind of affected gaming in gibraltar as well well i think it it's it's evident that cryptocurrency uh sees gibraltar as a as a safe uh a base to set up um that was very much uh thanks to the the the dlt legislation that was put in place uh in recent years uh and and i think if anything it's probably just you know kept that uh set that set the mark quite high for all of the the the gaming companies that are already here in terms of the tech capability uh and and the the sort of emergence of fintech in general and so what we've found i think is that it's been beneficial to other other industries and sectors here uh on the basis that you know our talent pool just becomes bigger for those tech uh tech savvy uh members of members of the team i mean if anything the only the only thing that it's been a challenge for with us is our architects because whenever we have computer generated images of developments that we're planning they've still got these you know pictures of of people in suits with briefcases and you just don't see that in gibraltar people are wearing shorts we've got 300 days of sunshine a year here it's a completely different lifestyle so um if anything people are still just trying to adapt to the way that people work here which is a very productive way but also making the most of of you know life beyond work as well yeah we can definitely see there's a number of factors that play in gibraltar a number of kind of intersecting uh sectors um like i said i think i think it's uh we've talked about a lot and i think it'd be fair to give you both kind of a last word opportunity and sorry it does put you on the spot a little bit but uh peter if we uh we go to you first um are there any kind of sort of closing things that you'd like to add you know on the topic of gibraltar and it can be as broad as as you like there's two points i want to make one is to pick up what ed said i think was very very important and i'm glad that he is a as a half outsider sees it which is this common sense of purpose i think this happens in small places but in particular because of gibraltar's history is very prevalent here uh and it genuinely is a feeling that exists among professionals and i said every involved in developing a sector to to try and grow the cake i think that although there are rivalries commercial and professional rivalries there is a very strong sentiment that people who come to gibraltar become part of a collective endeavor which helps their businesses but also helps the group as a whole i think it's a very important thing because uh collaboration is uh sadly lacking in some other places in egypt it's a very strong feature the other thing i want to stress is that i like to believe that in gibraltar um we try to build centers of excellence we're too small to pretend to do everything well or even halfway but if we do half a dozen things very well then we can compete with anywhere in the world and that has been the experience we had originally with the military we were a strategic location in a part of the world which was absolutely pivotal it was a jewel in the crown of the defense establishment then we've done it with insurance when it came to car insurance with gaming hopefully with crypto and dlt technology but that's really the the approach to to adopt a center of excellence when we attract the best possible talent yeah thanks for those thoughts peter and then the the last word thanks tim it's almost impossible following peter after that i mean it's spot on with a lot of those points um i think if anything that the real one i would emphasize is our positioning uh as a jurisdiction um moving forward i think we're very well positioned we're part of the uk family still so we still enjoy uk market access but also you know especially with our world trade center links yeah there are 320 world trade centers globally uh over 70 70 capital cities in 90 countries and i think that really offers something when you know the uk is beginning to look on a on a global scale at new trade opportunities gibraltar can be part of that as well um so i'm really excited and optimistic about about the next few months and years for gibraltar and uh we we believe that the the gaming industry is as well well yeah as you say plenty to look forward to um peter and ed thank you both for your time and your analysis thanks jim [Music]