Henry Birkbeck

Counsel, Reed Smith LLP

Henry regularly acts on a variety of film, TV and video game production and financing transactions, across a wide spectrum of clients. He has advised production companies, national broadcasters, studios, SVOD platforms, video game developers and apps on their production agreements for a broad range of audio-visual content.

Henry has significant experience acting for financiers on film and TV financings, including top-tier international productions. He also advises both production companies and rightsholders on the early stages of content development, including rights acquisitions and development financings.

Beyond this, Henry has experience working across the video games, podcast, music and tech industries. Henry joined Reed Smith from the London office of a magic circle firm, where he was involved in a broad variety of finance work across various industries.

Contributed to

1

The UK film and television audiovisual expenditure credit scheme

Practice Notes

Audiovisual expenditure credit (AVEC) schemeIn the UK, expenditure credits are available under the Corporation Tax Act 2009 (CTA 2009) for both British films and television programmes. The audiovisual expenditure credit (AVEC) scheme replaced the tax relief scheme introduced by the Finance Act 2014 and permits tax credits to be claimed where a film or TV production meets the relevant eligibility criteria.Film tax relief was originally introduced in 2007 under the Finance Act 2006 with the aim of incentivising investment in UK productions. Since the relief was introduced, 5,230 films have made claims, and £5,905m has been paid out to qualifying production companies. The relief was extended in 2013 to include television programmes. A total of 1,375 programmes have subsequently made claims, and £3,967m has been paid out. For further detail, see Creative Industries Statistics August 2024.Several schemes relating to the film industry have, historically, come under the spotlight for attempting to exploit loopholes in the legislation through the use of film partnership structures.

Tax