If you want transparency and ethical conduct in your aircraft buy/sell transactions, certain back-to-back structures might not work for you.
In its basic form, a back-to-back occurs when an aircraft broker buys an aircraft from the principal seller and then immediately sells the aircraft to the end-user buyer. Brokers enter into a purchase agreement with the seller and then a separate sales agreement with the buyer. Usually, neither the buyer nor the seller sees the terms of the other’s agreement with the broker. Understandably, the broker enjoys an intermediary position where it need not, depending on the circumstances, disclose the full compensation to the broker’s client and/or to the client’s counterparty.
David G. Mayer is a member of the global Aviation Practice Group at Shackelford, McKinley & Norton in Dallas, which handles private aircraft matters, including regulatory compliance, tax planning, purchases, sales, leasing and financing, risk management, insurance, aircraft management and operations, hangar leasing, and related corporate work. Mayer frequently represents corporations and high- and ultra-high-net worth individuals and other aircraft owners, flight departments, lessees, borrowers, operators, sellers, purchasers, corporations and managers, as well as lessors and lenders. He can be contacted at [email protected].
