Vilhelm Schröder

Hannes Snellman successfully represented Kesko Oyj and several K-Citymarket stores in multiple administrative court proceedings where Regional State Administrative Agencies had introduced restricting conditions to the alcohol retail trade licences of the K-Citymarket stores. 

Kesko and the K-Citymarket stores appealed the decisions of the Regional State Administrative Agencies, and in its first four decisions, the Administrative Court of Northern Finland ruled in favour of the appellants by revoking the conditions of the alcohol retail trade licences to a large extent and ordering the authorities to compensate for part of the legal costs incurred by the appellants.

The decisions of the Administrative Court of Northern Finland were appealed by the Regional State Administrative Agencies and the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health. On 19 June 2024, the Supreme Administrative Court handed down a precedent ruling (KHO:2024:90), where the Court ruled in favour of the K-Citymarket stores. The Supreme Administrative Court confirmed that the Alcohol Act does not require that only the licence holder or their staff could hand over alcoholic beverages to the customers. Neither does the Alcohol Act require that the payment for an alcoholic beverage could only be received by the holder of the alcohol retail trade licence or an entity legally authorised to process payments. Therefore, the Regional State Administrative Agency could not impose the conditions in the retail trade licence based on the grounds it had asserted. The Supreme Administrative Court held that there was no reason to change the outcome of the decision of the Administrative Court of Northern Finland. 

In the three other cases, the Supreme Administrative Court rejected the authorities’ applications for leave to appeal, wherefore the outcome of the decisions of the Administrative Court of Northern Finland was not changed in these cases either.

The Supreme Administrative Court ordered the Regional State Administrative Agencies and the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health to compensate EUR 15,000 of the legal costs incurred by the K-Citymarket stores in each decision.

Hannes Snellman successfully defended Continental Automotive GmbH (“Continental”) in an action brought by Nokia Technologies Oy (“Nokia”) concerning the right to claim priority for a patent. The Market Court held that the matter did not concern the registration or validity of a patent. The Market Court also held that Nokia lacked declaratory interest. Consequently, the Market Court found that it lacked jurisdiction and dismissed the action without considering the merits as requested by Continental.

The Market Court ordered Nokia to compensate EUR 500,000 with legal interest to Continental for the legal costs incurred.

The decision is not final.

Hannes Snellman, together with Hogan Lovells and Gleiss Lutz, successfully represented Supponor entities in the Helsinki Local Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in a case concerning a digital overlay technology. As requested by the defendants, the court dismissed the patent holder’s preliminary injunction application and main action due to lack of jurisdiction, as the asserted patent had initially been opted-out from the UPC’s jurisdiction, and its subsequent attempted opt-out withdrawal was deemed ineffective under Art. 83 of the UPC Agreement due to pending national proceedings. This was the first oral hearing and first decision by the Helsinki Local Division of the UPC since the launch of the UPC on 1 June 2023

Counsel to Anora, a leading alcoholic beverage brand company operating in wine and spirits markets in the Nordic and Baltic countries, in a dispute before the Market Court against Valvira, the National Supervisory Authority for Welfare and Health, regarding Anora Group’s right to disclose information on its key assets, i.e., key brands.

Counsel a public company in a copyright dispute before the Market Court and the Supreme Court concerning copyright and limitations to the exclusive rights of the copyright holder set forth in the Copyright Act.

Counsel to a Nordic group in a patent infringement and invalidation proceedings before the Market Court. The infringement case concerned both the direct infringement and doctrine of equivalents 

Counsel to a multinational technology company and its local distributor in patent infringement and invalidation proceedings before the Market Court. The cases were settled out of court.

Counsel to a Finnish listed company in multiple parallel regulatory proceedings pending before different administrative courts in Finland.