The number of suspected and investigated securities market offences has increased substantially in Finland. Furthermore, the cases have become more extensive and more complicated. The court proceedings of securities market offences tend to be very long as the cases involve an ever-increasing amount of written and oral evidence.

An extensive general bankruptcy legislation reform will be implemented in Finland, which will repeal the established Bankruptcy of Act 1868. The new Bankruptcy Act (hereafter BA of 2004) will come into force on 1 September 2004. Also several additional laws will be altered due to the BA of 2004.

The Finnish regulatory framework for corporate governance and directors’ duties is governed by the following three Acts: the Companies Act, the Securities Markets Act and the Accounting Act.

In a recent case the Finnish Supreme Court found that a registration offence had been committed.

In Finland the provisions on precautionary measures are included in the Code of Judicial Procedure. General precautionary measures can also be applied to cases related to intellectual property.

Although most companies operating in the Nordic region (whether in the basic industry, service or high-tech sector) tend to be aware of the value of the company’s intellectual property assets (including patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, etc.), few have yet drafted an IP strategy laying down a policy and process on how to best protect and preserve IP assets and use IP to generate value for the business.

The Finnish Ministry of Justice set up a working group (the "Working Group") on 2 December 2011 with the task to prepare amendments to legislation to reduce reported problems caused by short term/payday loans ("Microloans").

Amendments to the Finnish public procurement legislation came into force on 1 June 2010. The new legislative package includes doubling of the national thresholds values that determine the applicability of the Finnish Act on Public Contracts and also the transposition of the Remedies Directive 2007/66/EC into national legislation.

The government has on the 19th of May given its bill on reforming the corporate and capital income taxation. The bill involves many changes, but the processing of the bill in parliament may still change the content of the reform.

The European Commission's Directive on Pay Transparency Measures (the "Directive") has been formally adopted and published.

Nevertheless, certain NATO agencies and regulations stand out as particularly relevant for Finnish companies interested in getting involved with NATO procurements.

The commercialisation of academic research is an active topic in Finland. Due to the new legislative change in Finland, Finnish universities may hold shares in companies and also establish university-based companies.

Ms. Aura Soininen, who has worked in the IP and technology group of B&K’s Helsinki office since 2005, has completed her dissertation on patents. The public examination of the work titled "Patents in the Information and Communications Technology Sector - Development Trends, Problem Areas and Pressures for Change" was held on 3 March 2007 in the Lappeenranta University of Technology.

The Finnish Government has recently issued a proposal for new legislation concerning the tax deductibility of cross-border tax losses.

Many of us have heard companies and banks talking about sustainability-linked instruments. But what actually are these instruments and what is their contribution to sustainable development?

The partial reform of the Finnish Act on Preventing Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing, which has been in the works since January 2022...

The European Commission adopted a Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF) on 25 June 2025 to support implementation of the goals set out in the Clean Industrial Deal (see our Legal Alert on the Deal).

The global financial crisis, which started in the United States, spread to Europe during summer and autumn 2008 and finally to Finland in the late autumn.