Compliance & Risk

Compliance & Risk

Compliance with legislative and regulatory requirements are high on today’s management agenda in practically all areas of business. These days, compliance also includes sustainability goals and related stakeholder expectations.

We help you map out a comprehensive understanding of your compliance and risk landscape so that you can make informed decisions, mitigate risks, and maintain a strong reputation.

Know your present and future compliance risks

We assist you in detecting and minimising your present and future compliance risks. Our work includes integrity due diligence on customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. We also perform more extensive compliance risk analysis of our client’s existing businesses as standalone assignments and of target companies as part of transactional work. In addition to regulatory requirements and integrity risks, we assess adherence with company compliance and sustainability policies.

Be on top of different sanctions regimes

International sanctions and export control affect many businesses that trade internationally. Rapidly changing sanction regimes and the increase in restrictions in recent years mean that you are having to navigate a very complex regulatory landscape. Being on top of different regimes and changes may seem overwhelming but non-compliance can lead to substantial risks, such as criminal liability, loss of business and reputational risks.

We advise in all questions relating to sanctions and export control. Our expertise covers assessment of a company’s sanction risks, sanction screening processes, drafting internal sanctions compliance programmes and advising on export licensing requirements.

A complete service for all your compliance issues

Through our firm’s exceptionally broad and leading full-service capability, you will find a complete set of services covering all aspects of compliance, ranging from anti-corruption, general criminal law, tax, data protection and competition law to sector specific regulatory expertise in most industries such as energy, mining, environmental, insurance and financial services.

As sustainability considerations are an integral part of compliance and risk management, we will also help you meet your sustainability obligations and objectives.

Latest references

We are acting as Finnish legal advisor to Prevas Aktiebolag in its acquisition of approximately 92 percent of the shares in NMAC Group Oy (‘Enmac’). This acquisition marks Prevas’ entry into the Finnish market and is aligned with its growth strategy, enabling future market synergies. Swedish Advokatfirman Lindahl KB is acting as lead legal counsel to Prevas Aktiebolag in this deal. Enmac was founded in 1983 and is a prominent player in the Finnish market offering advanced services in production process development, including advanced technical calculations, industrial automation, product development, as well as process and piping design. With approximately 200 employees and 8 locations in Finland, Enmac achieved a turnover of MEUR 23 in 2023. The transaction is subject to approval from the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment.
Case published 23.5.2024
We advised Metsä Group in a transaction whereby its Russian subsidiaries Metsä Svir LLC, Metsä Forest St. Petersburg LLC, Metsä Forest Podporozhye LLC and Metsä Board Rus LLC were sold to VLP Group. VLP Group is a forest industry company operating mainly in the Vologda region of Russia. In 2022, Metsä Group discontinued its Russian operations, including the Svir sawmill, wood procurement and board sales activities. As a result of this transaction, Metsä Group has fully divested its assets in Russia. Metsä Group is a group formed by Metsäliitto Cooperative and its subsidiaries that focuses on wood procurement and forest services, wood products, pulp and paperboard, and tissue and sealing papers. In 2023, the company had a turnover of EUR 6.1 billion and employed around 9 500 people.
Case published 15.5.2024
We drafted new Codes of Ethics for SATO to use internally and with business partners. The client wanted to get concise and legally up-to-date Codes that are easy to understand and look fresh. We drafted completely new Codes, designed a clear structure for them and designed and implemented their layout. We made separate Codes of Ethics for internal use and for business partners in order to meet the exact tone and style suitable for both end user groups. We also made English translations of the Codes of Ethics. The end product was practical and interactive PDF instructions that are consistent with the client’s visual style. Client insight and taking the target group’s needs into account are some of the main principles of legal design. The client’s wishes also focused on the end users of the Code of Ethics, i.e. the company’s employees and business partners. In this project, efficient project management and an open line of communication helped us understand the wishes of the client company and deliver an end product with which the client was very happy. Active dialogue with the client was an important quality factor in this agile and iterative project. In the first phase we provided the client with a prototype and then continued the design work based on the comments we received. The appearance of the final product was designed in accordance with the client’s graphical guidelines. SATO Corporation is an expert in sustainable rental housing and one of Finland’s largest rental housing providers. SATO owns around 25,000 rental homes in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Tampere and Turku. Approximately 45,000 residents live in SATOhomes. The project involved experts in legal design, linguistics and graphic design, and members of our Legal Tech team.
Case published 6.2.2024
We assisted SATO Corporation in a comprehensive review of the company’s compliance functions by assessing whether SATO’s internal policies, guidelines and commitments, such as the company’s code of conduct, were up to date and complied with regulations. As a result of the review, we provided suggestions for developing the compliance-related guidelines in a way that would make organisation-wide implementation of compliance matters more efficient. In addition, we suggested how the compliance functions could be developed in the short and long term and their structure simplified in order for the model to correspond better with the goals of the company’s sustainability programme and the requirements of upcoming sustainability regulation. ‘The support provided by the Castrén & Snellman experts in this review has been invaluable. We received excellent comments on how to develop and implement our guidelines and policies. It’s easy to trust the advice of these experts,’ say Katri Innanen, General Counsel, and Sini Kössi, Leading Legal Counsel, Investments, from SATO.
Case published 8.5.2023