Katja Perätalo

Katja has strong experience in managing and negotiating the contractual side of industrial and energy sector construction and outsourcing projects. Her area of expertise covers all phases of projects before, during, and after execution and both in terms of non-contentious and contentious aspects. Katja has focused especially on contractual issues and disputes relating to power plants and industrial projects by drafting and negotiating various kinds of construction and supply contracts, advising on claim/delay management and other strategic issues with contentious interfaces during project execution, handling both potential and realised disputes relating to, for instance, delays, performance, and variations in said projects, and advising in M&A and project finance deals in relation to the contractual scope of this industry sector.

Katja has recently published her doctoral dissertation on liabilities between parties of a construction project, with a particular focus on the interface between tort and contract law. The dissertation was publicly examined in September 2020.

Before joining Hannes Snellman, Katja was in charge of contracts & claims management within the procurement function and a member of the procurement management team at one of the largest industrial companies in Finland. Katja also has several years of experience from working in another large Finnish law firm, during which time she also went on secondment to a large international law firm in London. Before her legal career, Katja worked as an analyst in the real estate & construction industry.

Katja is a former international level athlete with European finalist and World Championship semi-finalist placements, for instance. She also held Finnish records for over a decade. This has transformed into high aspirations in her professional goals as well.