Hannes Snellman Counsel to Finnish Customs in Landmark Public Procurement of Cryptocurrency Brokerage Services

Hannes Snellman acted as counsel to Finnish Customs in the public procurement of bitcoin brokerage services. The assignment is related to the Finnish Government’s decision to sell the Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies seized by Finnish Customs and allocate a significant share of the additional revenue to support Ukraine in the current war.

“As far as we know, this was the first public procurement of cryptocurrency brokerage services by a government agency in the world. We realized soon that we need legal expertise we don’t have in our organisation and we chose Hannes Snellman to assist us. We are very pleased with the counsel provided by Hannes Snellman in this project”, says Pekka Pylkkänen, CFO of Finnish Customs.

“This was an exceptional mandate, requiring seamless combination of multiple fields of law within the framework of public procurement. We were honoured to assist Finnish Customs with the seized cryptocurrencies”, say Outi Jousi and Jesper Nevalainen from Hannes Snellman.

Our core team comprised Outi Jousi, Jesper Nevalainen, Eeva Tiainen, Anna Mäkinen (Public Procurement and Technology), Jari Tukiainen, Sanna Boow (Financial Services Regulation, Crypto Assets), Antti Kuha (Mergers & Acquisitions), and Stefan Stellato (Tax and Crypto Assets).