Private Wealth & Family Office(en) Archives - Castrén & Snellman

Chambers High Net Worth Finland 2025: Castrén & Snellman top-ranked in the Private Wealth Law category

We offer comprehensive advice in the fields of wealth management and marital property and inheritance law, combining tax aspects and family-law related risk management.

As a trusted partner for owner-entrepreneurs, family-owned businesses, and wealthy private individuals, our clients enjoy seamless, one-stop access to all the legal advice they need, ensuring that the strategic understanding of how they want their wealth to be managed remains crystal clear at all times.

When it comes to planning a business succession and the related ownership strategy, our support helps you identify how to pass on your business to the next generation in a viable way that respects the family’s wishes. We draft documentation under family law and contract law to prepare for situations where life doesn’t go according to expectations. We also update such documentation after a business transaction if the seller has acquired a substantial fortune as a result of the sale.

Advising estates on matters related to inheritance and estate taxation is another area of our expertise. We assist parties to an estate in resolving inheritance disputes and settling issues that are open to interpretation. We will also help you with taxation issues by applying for preliminary rulings and other pre-emptive guidance from the Tax Administration and by representing you in potential tax disputes. In tax-related administrative procedures, we screen all matters in advance to avoid any risk of criminal proceedings that may arise due to factors such as reporting errors.

We also offer support for all your other business legal needs from corporate governance to M&A and beyond. Your trusted personal advisor will act as your single point of contact and compile a team of experts with comprehensive legal insight and close contacts with business life to match your specific needs. We also work in close collaboration with major banks and asset management companies.

Our clients appreciate our straightforward and practical approach and our ability to explain legalese in plain language. Our expertise has also received international recognition: Chambers High Net Worth Finland Guide 2024 has ranked our team in Band 1 for Private Wealth Law.

Our services include

Wealth management planning
Planning and execution of ownership structures
Structuring and carrying out succession in a family business
Marital property and inheritance law related tax matters
Applications for preliminary ruling and other pre-emptive guidance
Tax litigation

Latest references

Fortum – AI workshop

We delivered two AI workshops for Fortum Corporation’s Mergers and Acquisitions team, with both legal and business professionals participating. The sessions combined fundamental AI principles with custom use cases for commercially available AI tools tailored to Fortum’s needs. We also presented a bespoke solution merging AI with a script-based tool developed by our Legal Tech team, enabling a more automated way of working. Our experts conducted the training drawing on their legal background and leading experience in this emerging field of legal technology. Participants particularly appreciated the clarity and relevance of the implementations demonstrated. ‘C&S delivered an excellent, well-structured series of workshops, with directly applicable takeaways,’ says Sabina Hautaviita, Legal Counsel for M&A at Fortum.

VR – Supreme Court decision clarifies working time practices

We successfully represented VR Group before the Supreme Court in a case concerning the meal break practice of commuter train drivers. On 6 February 2026, the Supreme Court ruled in VR’s favour (decision KKO:2026:12), confirming that VR had the right to amend the commuter train drivers’ meal break practice in 2021 by rendering the break unpaid in accordance with the applicable collective agreement. This decision clarifies the interpretation of collective agreements and employment legislation as well as the limits of the employer’s right to direct work. Over 250 commuter train drivers challenged the unpaid meal break practice which VR introduced in April 2021. Before the change, meal breaks had a long history of being paid. The change was based on the train drivers’ collective agreement, which allows for meal breaks to be organised either as paid or unpaid time. The Supreme Court ruled that the scheduling and managing of breaks falls within the core area of the employer’s right to direct work. This increases the threshold for an established practice becoming a binding condition for the parties. Merely following a practice consistently and over a long period of time does not make the practice binding; instead, the employer’s intent to commit to the practice must be clearly evident from the employer’s conduct or other circumstances. As both alternatives – paid and unpaid – for organising meal breaks had been retained in the collective agreement despite other amendments over the years, it could not be considered that VR had intended to commit to the paid break practice and waive its right to direct work as regards break scheduling. It was also significant that the employment contracts explicitly referred only to the collective agreement as regards working time. The Supreme Court deemed that the employees’ paid meal break was not an established term of employment and that VR was entitled to change the practice based on the collective agreement. The employer had the right, by virtue of its right to direct work, to unilaterally change the meal break practice by choosing to apply the other arrangement permitted by the collective agreement.

CapMan Growth – Investment in Kuntokeskus Liikku

We are assisting CapMan Growth in its significant investment in Kuntokeskus Liikku, a Finnish gym chain known for its high-quality self-service facilities and excellent value for money. The investment will further strengthen Liikku’s position as a market leader and support the continued execution of its growth strategy. Liikku is one of Finland’s leading fitness chains, with more than 70 locations across the country serving nearly 90,000 members. The company’s concept is to offer high-quality self-service gyms at an exceptionally competitive price point which, combined with strong operational efficiency, provides a solid foundation for profitable growth. The company’s main shareholder is COR Group, a long-time partner of CapMan Growth, and a Finnish health and wellness conglomerate known for active ownership and long-term value creation. CapMan Growth is a leading Finnish growth investor that makes significant investments in entrepreneur-led growth companies with a turnover of €10–200 million. CapMan Growth is part of CapMan, which is a leading Nordic private equity investor engaged in active value creation work. CapMan has been listed on the Helsinki Stock Exchange since 2001.

Terrafame – Environmental and water management permit processes concerning the company’s entire operations and the KL1 side rock area

Castrén & Snellman successfully assisted Terrafame Ltd in environmental and water management permit processes concerning the company’s entire operations and the KL1 side rock area, on which the Supreme Administrative Court issued its decision on 12 February 2026 (KHO 366/2026 and 367/2026). The changes made to the decisions of the Vaasa Administrative Court as a result of Terrafame’s appeals, enable the company to implement its new strategy and develop its operations as planned. The decisions of the Supreme Administrative Court brought the nearly ten-year-long permit process to a close.

Latest insights

3.3.2026 – Employment The threshold for dismissal is lowered: what should be taken into account in practice?

Aleksandra Särkelä

Aleksandra Särkelä

2.3.2026 – Environment, Energy & Green Transition Energy security is a matter of investment and competitiveness

Samuli Tarkiainen

Marius af Schultén

Samuli Tarkiainen & Marius af Schultén

6.2.2026 – Tax & Structuring Electricity sector Profit Tax Act in conflict with EU law – SAC denied leave to appeal

Janne Juusela

Mikko Alakare

Janne Juusela & Mikko Alakare

2.2.2026 – Data & Technology Avoid costly risks with well-drafted distribution agreements

Topi Lusenius

Samuli Salminen

Topi Lusenius & Samuli Salminen

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