With more than 70 lawyers and consultants in our Nordic and Baltic group, our International practice has extensive experience of the Nordic and Baltic regions, which include the following countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden.
A number of our lawyers, consultants and staff interested in these countries speak Danish, Finnish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian and Swedish. Firmwide our lawyers, consultants and staff speak more than 40 languages.
McGuireWoods advises business and private clients who seek to live, work or do business in or with the Nordic and Baltic countries. The team includes lawyers and tax advisors whose primary focus is to assist transnational companies with their international and regional corporate, employment, litigation, property, taxation and reorganization concerns, and to support international high net worth clients and their families, providing ongoing tax advice, and inheritance tax planning for foreign executives and investors who seek to establish in the UK and elsewhere, outside the Nordic region.
McGuireWoods’ legacy firm in London, Grundberg Mocatta Rakison, was founded on a rich Anglo-Nordic heritage. For more than 30 years, we have encouraged lawyers to develop specific legal skills, multiple technical language capabilities and solid business acumen, retaining sensitivity toward the cultural distinctions of a growing, diversely international Anglo-Nordic client base. Our team includes lawyers qualified in England and Wales, Finland, Sweden and Norway, who sustain enduring relationships with local counsel in the Nordic and Baltic regions, including through our membership of the LNI global legal network.
Alongside our corporate and commercial practitioners, the firm’s private client group has received peer recognition for their work. We regularly advise individuals and fiduciaries on generational planning related to trusts, foundations, holding companies, not-for-profit organizations, family offices and other entities, as well as on complex property issues and multi-jurisdictional probate matters.
Our lawyers are familiar with the needs of leading Nordic and other financial institutions, banks, corporate finance houses, providers and suppliers that serve the Nordic and Baltic communities. Related experience gained as independent advisors marries well with prior in-house experience gained working at some of the most important Nordic and Baltic financial services operators. Our clients range from start-up companies to conglomerates and syndicates. Our efforts span the acquisition, sale and reorganization of companies; bilateral, club and syndicated transactions; vanilla, leveraged and complex financings for borrowers in food products, logistics, paper and pulp and telecommunications, among others.
Since 2008, when the Icelandic economy collapsed, the firm has played several key roles in helping manage the crisis at one Icelandic bank that went into receivership. Previously, the bank had held €26 billion in assets, and interests across Europe. It had operations in the UK, Canada, Denmark and China, working with Icelandic, Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish lending, financial advisory and brokerage operations. The Resolution Committee appointed by the Icelandic government chose McGuireWoods to serve as English counsel, and we have been working to resolve related matters since that time. This assignment has included disposal of interests in private equity and other investment vehicles, as well as the restructuring of equity interests in a number of UK high street brands.
In the Baltic region, one of our partners established and managed a Latvian law firm. The Baltics share history with Finland, Sweden, Germany, Poland and Russia, and important current economic, legal and social connections with Western Europe. McGuireWoods has advised on a variety of Baltic client initiatives, including the setup of a supermarket network, advising a Nordic retail chain’s EBRD-backed €61 million real estate project, advising on property funds in the region, and representing acquirers in Estonian transactions ranging from €10 million to €400 million.
The firm is actively engaged with a range of Nordic business and legal networking organizations, including the British-Icelandic Chamber of Commerce, the British-Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Sweden, The Danish Club, the Danish-UK Chamber of Commerce, the Finnish-British Chamber of Commerce, the Norwegian-British Chamber of Commerce, and the Swedish Chamber of Commerce for the United Kingdom. A former partner of the firm now serves as the US Ambassador to Sweden.