Finland: Finance and Banking

During 2006 there have been a few quite large transactions involving Finnish parties, but much of the M&A activity has taken place on the mid-sized market. Last year was also exceptional in that sense that there have been changes within the legal framework, which substantially effects the M&A market.

The provisions of the Finnish Securities Markets Act (495/1989) (the "SMA") concerning public tender offers are currently under revision. The proposed amendments to the SMA implement Directive 2004/25/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on Takeover Bids (the "Directive").

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.

The EU is aiming to be climate neutral by 2050, which will require climate action from us all.

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").

The Finnish Ministry of Finance has started preparations for a reform of the Finnish Securities Market Act (the "SMA").

The Loan Market Association (the LMA) has introduced model provisions for green loans, marking a significant advancement in sustainable finance as green loans are a consistently popular loan product.

Sustainable finance has developed rapidly in recent years. Financing has been systematically directed towards investments in line with sustainable development...

In recent years the global loan market has seen a shift from traditional bank lending towards private credit.

Side letter agreements are a common way to agree on special conditions granted to certain investors concerning private investment funds. Fund managers should be familiar with the practices...

Finnish special investment funds are still quite rare even though the Finnish Act on Alternative Investment Funds Managers (162/2014) allows for their establishment.

C&S fund expert Antti Vepsä's peer-reviewed article on the capital system of variable-capital investment companies has been published in the latest yearbook Oikeustiede – Jurisprudentia LV:2022...