Hannes Snellman’s Dispute Resolution Team advises clients in the field of anti-bribery and corruption, looking to prevent bribery and corruption within clients’ activities, both at the national and international level. We help our clients tackle the risks related to corruption and bribery and advise clients in cases where negative consequences have already arisen. We give tools for identifying and detecting challenges and ensuring compliance with legal requirements, codes of conduct, and best practices.

Our team’s practice covers assisting our clients in questions relating to the responsibilities of companies, management, and other individuals, such as employees. We assist clients who conduct business with public organisations, private companies, or both, and if needed, handle proceedings with the relevant authorities or courts. Our team also regularly assists clients in matters relating to hospitality involving clients’ different stakeholders. In addition, we provide tailored training sessions to clients relating to these issues.

Cyber security incidents and data breaches require an immediate, decisive, and multi-disciplinary response. Our experts are fully equipped to advise you on matters relating to the legal aspects of data protection, privacy, and cyber security. Our team has the expertise and capacity to assist you across the cyber security lifecycle, including incident response to data breaches, post-incident remediation, responding to authorities’ investigations, and non-contentious transactional and project work, providing you a holistic and tailored client experience in demanding and business critical situations.

Hannes Snellman’s Employment Team regularly advises both domestic and international clients in matters related to employment law. The employment law practice covers all aspects of employment law, including discrimination, data privacy, work environment, collective bargaining, and corporate governance issues, for example. Furthermore, we have significant experience in managing large restructuring processes, including collective and individual redundancies, performance-related terminations, and employment litigation.

Competition policy has emerged as one of the most important policies in Europe and, as such, the failure to comply can lead to heavy fines. However, for many companies, the most important consequence of an infringement is often the adverse press publicity this attracts and the consequent damage wrought to the company’s goodwill. What is more, a competition investigation in itself usually entails a high burden on the affected firm, with significant amounts of senior management time that will have to be committed to handling the questions raised by competition authorities. Therefore, working proactively is the cornerstone of our work.

In terms of compliance work, we are experienced in advising companies in their supply agreement schemes and assessing their multi-product rebate schemes, among other things. Furthermore, we have assisted clients in tailoring, evaluating, and updating competition compliance policies and company internal guidance.

We aim at managing our clients’ risks at all levels – namely the inquiry risk (the level of costs associated with an investigation), the substantive risk (the probability of a successful defence), and the sanction and relief risk (the level of costs associated with a proven infringement) – and at allocating the appropriate resources according to the risks involved. For instance, we have good working relationships with several premier economic consulting firms, but we also have the experience to assess, in each case, the need and value of hiring their services.

Whether our clients are faced with an external investigation concerning alleged misconduct or the need to conduct an internal investigation about suspected wrongdoings, we provide a dedicated tailored team that effectively identifies the risks to be managed and the issues needed to be investigated.

We have extensive experience of carrying out complex investigations, and we have access to state-of-the-art software to review and analyse large volumes of documents and a network of consultants in place to assist us with the investigations if need be. Through our well-established methods, we provide the agreed end product in a time- and cost-effective manner.

Hannes Snellman’s Financial Services Regulatory Team advises both local and international financial institutions and other AML reporting entities on their regulatory obligations under the Finnish anti-money laundering regime. We have extensive experience in drafting guidelines and other AML/KYC documentation for our clients and in assisting clients in every-day questions relating to their know-your-customer processes. We also regularly advise corporate clients in beneficial ownership reporting questions.

Hannes Snellman’s Procurement Team regularly advises clients on all stages of the procurement process and contractual term to ensure compliance with public procurement regulations.

The team’s practice includes matters related to prohibited tender collaboration, exclusion of suppliers from public tenders due to misconduct, and “self-cleaning” actions, i.e. measures to remedy past misconduct and prove reliability, or accept. We advise contracting authorities and entities and companies on the prevention of corruption: how to avoid conflicts of interest in public procurements and prevent bribery, also including other cases of undue influence in public procurements, i.e. “trading in influence”, and forbidden ways to influence tenders. We also advise clients on situations relating to in-house procurement and direct awards.

Trade sanctions imposed by the European Union have influenced many Finnish and EU companies. As the EU trade sanctions are mandatory law, many companies are faced with the difficult task of investigating whether the sanctions have an impact on the company itself, its business, or its clients.

We have advised several of our clients on issues related to EU trade sanctions, such as the contents of the sanctions, the effects of the sanctions regarding the termination of contracts and the consequences thereof, whether the sanctions apply to the contractual parties of our clients and the implications of such sanctions applying to a contractual scenario or transaction, and whether the sanctions have an effect on the import or export control of our clients’ products. We have also assisted our clients with drafting and assessing their force majeure and hardship clauses and general terms and conditions to reflect the current sanctions regime and advised them with regard to export and other applications filed to the Finnish Foreign Ministry.

Whistleblowing plays a crucial role in risk management within all organisations, regardless of industry sector or size. It has become increasingly important on every business agenda with the introduction of the EU Whistleblower Protection Directive and the implementation of new requirements in individual countries. To prepare for whistleblower disclosures and regulatory investigations based on complaints, it is essential for companies to manage risks with clear and robust whistleblower and investigation procedures. Hannes Snellman’s whistleblowing experts provide advice on reporting requirements and can assist you in designing and implementing whistleblowing systems and preparing requisite documentation and compliance guidance.

In order to provide our clients a complete service offering in whistleblowing matters, we also cooperate with WhistleB, a global whistleblowing service provider with an online reporting system for reporting ethical and compliance-related misconduct.

Counsel to a leading Finnish company by successfully representing them in an external investigation concerning alleged breach of applicable regulations.

Counsel to an international organisation as an investigator. The internal investigation concerned suspected harassment, discrimination, and financial misconduct over an extended period of time.

Counsel to a significant Finnish company as an investigator in an internal investigation regarding substantial financial misconduct and alleged derelictions. The monetary value at stake amounted to millions of euro. The investigation involved AI assisted review of thousands of documents and a number of interviews.