Baker & McKenzie is advising Starbucks on the relocation of its EMEA headquarters from Amsterdam to London, Legal Week has learned.

The firm, a long-term adviser to the US coffee chain, is working alongside Starbucks' UK head of legal Adrian Thurston on both employment and corporate tax matters.

Bakers' London corporate tax team specialises in "corporate inversions" into the UK from the US, Bermuda or elsewhere, which involves the relocation of a company's headquarters to a low-tax nation or corporate haven while retaining its material operations in its country of origin.

The firm's website says the team has provided tax advice on all major corporate inversions into the UK in the public domain.

On the Starbucks mandate, Bakers declined to comment.

In the past, the firm has advised Starbucks across a range of tax and corporate matters, including the company's 2006 acquisition of Beijing Mei Da Coffee, and a successfully fought, long-running legal battle in Russia against a trademark squatter.

In a statement yesterday (16 April), Starbucks said it intended to complete the move to London by the end of 2014.

Starbucks said the move, which will involve the relocation of a "modest" number of senior executives to London, will help its leadership better "oversee the UK market in which half of our European stores are located".

The company also said it would "pay more tax in the UK", following recent criticism of its low tax payments in the country over the last few years.

However, Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK said the move would give Starbucks tax advantages, given recent changes in UK tax legislation.

"The real reason, I'm sure, why Starbucks is moving is because George Osborne has changed the UK from having a corporation tax system that charged UK-based companies tax on their worldwide profits to one where he only charges UK companies tax on the profits that they earn in this country," he wrote on his blog.

"My guess is that the additional tax paid in the UK will be less than the overall tax paid to date in the Netherlands."

A Starbucks spokesperson said no decision had yet been made on changes to the in-house legal team. Responsibility for the EMEA region currently sits with Seattle-based vice president and assistant general counsel Kenneth Van.

The EMEA legal director role was previously held by Amsterdam-based Axel Viaene, who left in last December to join Vision Express owner GrandVision.