Summer School 2021

Greetings from Summer School 2021: Seal the Deal

Hannes Snellman’s Summer School 2021 took place between 19 and 20 August. Summer School 2021 was organised in a hybrid format similarly to the previous year. As participants, we had a little over 20 law students from Finland and Sweden and about 20 Hannes hosts. In practice, the groups of students got together at the Hannes Snellman office in Stockholm and Helsinki and worked together remotely. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we already had experience of organising events remotely and were therefore able to ensure that everything ran smoothly. All in all, we were all able to enjoy an inspiring two days of interesting lectures, workshops, and discussions.

The topic of this year’s Summer School was “Seal the Deal”. The event focused on the topic of M&A and financing in an IP-focused transaction. We took a closer look at IP as the most valuable asset of a company and how IP issues affect transactions, and we also signed and closed the deal together. During the two days, we had an opportunity to enjoy both interesting lectures and workshops.

On Thursday, our programme kicked off with welcoming words from Fredrik Olsson, Hannes Snellman’s Managing Partner in Stockholm (pictured on the left). The programme continued with two inspiring lectures, the first one by Specialist Partner Olli-Pekka Veranen (pictured on the right), who gave an interesting introduction to M&A, and the second one by Partner Klaus Ilmonen, who discussed due diligence and share purchase agreements and the purpose of due diligence from the buyer’s and seller’s perspective.

Associate Jessica Tressfeldt and Partner Elisabeth Vestin from the IP & Technology Team discussed intellectual property in due diligence (pictured above). In their presentation, Jessica and Elisabeth talked about how intellectual property can be seen as an important asset in digital world and also described the due diligence process from an IP perspective.

In the first workshop, Associate Liisa Vaaraniemi and Associate Trainee Simon Mittler from the IP & Technology Team presented the case (pictured above), after which the students were divided into cross-border teams. With the help of the Hannes hosts, the teams were given a few hours to work on the case.

The final lecture of the day was given by Emilia Uusitalo, who works as a senior legal counsel at Sanoma. In her lecture, Emilia discussed the role of IP in transactions. The day ended with afterwork drinks at Hannes Snellman’s office and pizza in a nearby restaurant.

Friday morning began with an especially interesting topic: Managing Associate Sarita Schröder gave a lecture on current branding themes from a lawyer’s perspective (pictured above). Sarita discussed how minimalism, thinking outside the box, co-operations, and hyper-personalisation are trending in the field of branding, providing concrete and well-known examples from business life.

The day continued with Managing Associate Janne Veneranta and Associate Rezan Akkurt’s presentation about acquisition finance (pictured above). In their presentation, Janne and Rezan talked about bank financing in connection with acquisitions and key documentation relating to financing arrangements.

After lunch, it was time for the second workshop. The theme of the workshop was finance.

The next lecture was given by Partner Antti Nyberg from the Finance Team and Partner Mikael Klang from the Private M&A Team (pictured above). The duo talked us through the best practices regarding signing and closing.

The Summer School 2021 programme ended with a panel discussion on the future of M&A. The panel discussion was moderated by Senior Associate Maisa Cederström, and the panellists were Iikka Moilanen from Verdane, Erik Pettersson from MFC Corporate Finance, and our Managing Partner Riikka Rannikko.

We concluded Summer School 2021 with afterwork drinks and dinner at Hannes Snellman’s office.