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Hannes Snellman is a leading Finnish business law firm entrusted by its clients in matters of critical importance. We are visionary, dedicated, and human — a team of outstanding professionals who work together in a collaborative and empowering environment.
We are a community of individuals working towards a shared goal. With us, everyone is part of the team from day one. We believe our team spirit makes a difference not only to our people but also to our clients — when our people thrive, our clients get the best results.
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Riikka Kuha
Anniina Järvinen
Klaus Metsä-Simola
Anna-Maria Tamminen
Working together to make a sustainable impact.
The climate crisis and pressing social issues have brought about momentous structural and regulatory changes, lifting corporate sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) to the top of board agendas.
Recent years have witnessed an unprecedented expansion of ESG regulatory frameworks, introducing a rapid rise in binding obligations and legal accountability, and a surge in stakeholder-driven demands for reliable information and transparency. More recently, the evolving geopolitical landscape, shifting political agendas, and competitiveness concerns have increased differences in approaches towards ESG regulation and also brought initiatives of deregulation. These shifts present businesses with significant opportunities to enhance strategic decision-making, stakeholder governance, and resilience but also pose challenges due to fluctuating public policies and diverse regulations and expectations across industries and jurisdictions.
To help you navigate and prosper in this ever-evolving landscape, we offer a comprehensive view on alternatives that support your business and strategic goals. Our cross-practice team of experienced lawyers is dedicated to working closely with you, leveraging our diverse legal and policy expertise to develop seamless solutions that best support your business. From corporate governance and transactions, commercial contracts, procurement, and value chains to projects of green transition, sustainable finance, employment relations, ESG-related investigations and litigation, and more, we are committed to integrating ESG aspects across all your legal, strategic, and business needs.
We are here to help you succeed in reaching your strategic goals for sustainable business and to demystify complex regulation in a format that is best understood.
Our Competition & Regulatory Team helps clients with ESG-related matters, focusing on competition law compliance. We provide tools and best practices for a strong competition compliance framework within organisations, for instance, by ensuring that sustainability initiatives and agreements between competitors comply with competition laws and green claims regulations. We also help clients identify and argue sustainability factors in merger control procedures and advise on state aid issues related to climate, environmental protection, and energy.
Hannes Snellman’s team of cross-practice compliance experts can guide you in all kinds of compliance issues, such as reporting channels, internal investigations, antitrust, privacy, corruption and bribery, sanctions and expert control, market abuse, and corporate governance. We provide insight into best practices, common challenges, legislative changes, and new developments and trends.
Our Dispute Resolution Team supports our clients in various ESG-related matters. With a focus on dispute prevention and dispute resolution, we advise our clients in relation to dispute resolution clauses in new types of contracts and assist them in investigating any ESG-related issues, whether related to internal governance, environmental, or social norms. In doing so, we work closely with other practice groups at Hannes Snellman. Should any ESG-related questions result in litigation before administrative or civil courts, our team will be there to assist our clients in setting a strategy for the case that takes into account both the legal and reputational risks, as well as litigating the case. We follow international case law closely and are happy to discuss developments with you.
Our Employment Team assists clients in complying with legislation and fulfilling requirements regarding equality and diversity at the workplace, physical and psychological health and safety, and various employment conditions (for instance, work environment, working hours, and remuneration). This includes providing concrete solutions for formulating clients’ values, setting sustainability targets, implementing practices, and drafting policies.
Valuing sustainable employment conditions does not only prevent negative legal consequences, but it also facilitates attracting and maintaining talent.
Our market-leading Finance Team advises sponsors, investors, corporates, and financial institutions on all aspects of sustainable lending, including green loans, green bonds, sustainability-linked loans and sustainability-linked bonds, and investments related to climate change. Our finance lawyers are supported by ESG experts from the firm’s ESG cross-practice team providing clients with a full-service offering.
The Funds & Financial Services Regulation Team monitors and provides advice related to legal and regulatory ESG trends and developments in Finland and the EU. The experienced team can provide clients clarity on sustainable finance-related legislation and ESG disclosures (including matters under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) and the Taxonomy Regulation) in connection with, for example, fund formation, provision of investment services, and ongoing reporting and disclosure requirements applicable to financial market participants.
Our IP & Tech Team supports our clients in various ESG-related assignments in the area of technology law. From IT and outsourcing transactions to data regulation and artificial intelligence (AI), we cover it all. We help ensure that ESG requirements are incorporated into our clients’ contractual chains on IT and technology law-related assignments. Our services in this area include, for example, drafting and reviewing agreements with our clients’ suppliers and subcontractors and providing tailored training to our clients. We work closely with our other practice groups in assignments that have ESG dimensions by assisting our clients with questions regarding, for instance, processing of employees’ diversity, equity, and inclusion data and use of green claims in marketing.
Our Corporate Advisory, Capital Markets, and M&A Teams support our clients in various ESG-related matters and advise boards of directors and senior management of both listed and non-listed companies in all matters that have legal and strategic importance to the company. Our services include advising clients on corporate governance issues, securities market compliance, disclosure requirements, contract negotiation, corporate policies, and risk management. We keep clients informed and provide training on fast-evolving regulatory developments, including those in the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). We advise clients in questions related to the responsibilities and due care of the board of directors and senior management, conduct transactional due diligence reviews, and assist with IPO and fund formation due diligence.
Our public procurement specialists assist clients in compliance analysis and legal assessments regarding requirements, scoring criteria, and exclusion grounds. If needed, we also assist in drafting ways to mitigate existing exclusion criteria. This involves concrete solutions for the so-called self-cleaning and improvement of functions to avoid exclusion from tendering competitions in the future.
Our Real Assets Team assists clients in various ESG and compliance-related assignments in the areas of environment, projects and construction, energy, and real estate matters. We support our clients in ESG matters related to industrial, energy, and green investment projects, including, in particular, questions concerning environmental liabilities, permitting, and certifications, questions related to EU taxonomy, and management of ESG within supply chains and contractual networks. With regard to real estate and construction matters, we assist clients in questions related to, for instance, energy efficiency and carbon footprint of buildings and different certification matters (such as EPC, BREEAM). Our assignments typically involve regulatory investigations, advisory, commenting on technical ESG/EDD reports from a legal perspective, overall assessment of managing and flowing down ESG responsibilities across the supply chain, and providing concrete solutions relating to ESG within our field of expertise.
Our Tax Team supports our clients in ESG and compliance-related assignments in the area of direct and indirect taxation. We help our clients navigate and understand the emerging changes to the tax transparency, risk management, and governance landscape. Our assignments typically involve regulatory investigations and advisory for identifying responsible tax principles, tax incentives, and risks relating to our clients’ businesses. We work closely with other practice groups in assignments that have ESG dimensions, such as industrial, energy, and green investment projects, by offering tax advisory, structuring, and due diligence services. Our tax structuring and due diligence services are performed by taking into account good tax governance and other ESG aspects. In addition, we regularly assist our clients in seeking advance confirmations on the tax treatment of new business models from the Finnish Tax Administration. With our extensive experience, we also help our clients align their tax strategy with a broader corporate and risk management strategy. We would be happy to assist you in designing a tax strategy and preparing a transparent tax policy for your firm.
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Ricardo Gomes
Johanna Vanninen
Julia Ranta
Isabella Kartila
Piia Ahonen
Outi Jousi
Antti Nyberg
Johanna Haltia-Tapio
Riikka Rannikko
Klaus Ilmonen
Mikko Heinonen