Legal Trends by Hannes Hannes Snellman

The United States has recently seen a fair amount of interesting developments in the sphere of boardroom litigation and shareholder activism. In this episode, Justin Clarke of Cravath, Swaine & Moore joins us to discuss this trend and to update us on the most relevant cases. We also talk to Partner Antti Kuha from Hannes Snellman’s Helsinki office, whoreflects on how US developments influence corporate activities in the Nordic countries.

In recent years, many states and companies all around the world have seen litigations brought against them on the grounds that they are not doing enough to stop climate change. In this episode, we discuss this trend with Freerk Vermeulen of NautaDutilh in the Netherlands, who was involved in the landmark climate case brought by Urgenda against the Dutch government. We also discuss this topic with Klaus Metsä-Simola, Specialist Partner at Hannes Snellman’s Helsinki office and an expert on environmental law, who provides a Nordic perspective on how climate change concerns are taken into account.

In the past, the Nordic countries rarely became involved in investor-state disputes. As the times are changing and cases have recently been brought against several Nordic states, we discuss investment arbitration with Laura Halonen of WAGNER Arbitration from Berlin and Pontus Ewerlöf from Hannes Snellman’s Stockholm office. The episode contains thoughts on what in-house counsel should know about investment arbitration and views on what Nordic companies should take into account when considering whether to enforce their rights under various international investment agreements.

Mergers are not always straightforward processes. Occasionally, merger control cases end up in court, either on an EU or nationallevel. In this episode, we discuss recent trends in merger control litigation with Foad Hoseinian of Sullivan & Cromwell in Brussels (who also acted as a long-time clerk for a judge at the General Court of the EU) and Mikko Huimala, a competition law partner from Hannes Snellman’s Helsinki office. The discussion sheds light on merger control (litigation) trends in the EU and the Nordic countries.

It has been three years since the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in the EU. In this episode, we discuss GDPR from a litigation perspective — fines, damages, and other measures taken by regulators — with Philip Nolan of Mason Hayes & Curran from Ireland. Caroline Sundberg from Hannes Snellman’s Stockholm office joins Philip in the discussion and sheds light on the same issues from a Nordic perspective. The episode also contains helpful takeaways for companies who find themselves subject to GDPR-related investigations.

Both civil and administrative litigations can arise out of some type of wrongoing or non-compliance. In this episode, we talk to Patrick Schroeder of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Hamburg, Germany about handling and co-ordinating the investigation and litigation work following the Notice of Violation of the US Clean Air Act issued by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to Volkswagen AG, Audi AG, and Volkswagen Group of America, Inc in September 2015. Patrick is joined by Hannes Snellman’s Partner Anders Bygglin, and the two will reflect on the dos and don’ts of handling parallel investigations and administrative and civil proceedings.