Abstract
Finnish business forms are historically connected to their Scandinavian counterparts, following Continental European models. Private company is the leading business form with cooperative. The number of public companies is relatively small, reflecting Finland as a country of small and medium-sized enterprises. Due to the dominance of the private company, the most important regulatory framework for businesses is Companies Act of 2006, regulating both private and public companies. The Act is a hybrid, building on Nordic tradition but with Anglo-American spices especially when defining board duties and emphasizing freedom of contract. Strong shareholder rights and a board with a broad competence to run the business creates a tension that is solved by active shareholder participation in boards in private companies and with control holders in listed companies in which the state, private persons and families have an important role as control holders, with domestic pension companies, non-profit foundations and foreign institutional investors.
Abstract available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4636132