Professor Matti J. Sillanpää

Matti J. Sillanpää (born 1956) graduated from the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration 1980 (M.Sc., econ.) and from the law faculty of the Turku University 1984 (M. Laws). After that he had made the Licentiate of Laws degree (1988) he became Doctor of Laws from the Turku University (1994) with a doctoral dissertation about Public and Mandatory Takeover Bids.

He joined the Business Law Department at the Turku School of Economics at the Turku School of Economics in 1983 and since then he first served as a senior lecturer and assistant professor. In 1995 he became Professor of Commercial Law at the same institution, where he teaches courses on securities regulation, company law, corporate governance and auditing legislation. He is the author of one the leading textbooks on Finnish Company Law.

Prof. Sillanpää is a member of the European Model Companies Act group (EMCA, 2007-).  He is also a founding member of the academic Nordic Network for Company Law studies (1995-). He has been

the chairman of the (Finnish) Panel on Takeovers and Mergers (2006-2012), an expert member of the Finnish market court (2002-2010) and a vice member in the Finnish auditing supervisory board (1993-2012). He serves also as a chairman of the Banking Complaints Board at the Finnish Financial Ombudsman bureau. He has also acted often as adviser to large corporations, investment banks and law firms as well as government bodies on questions of M&A and other company law and securities legislation problems and has been a member or chairman in several arbitral tribunals..

He is the author of several books and articles on company law and securities regulation, including the leading textbook on Finnish Company Law. He has published in other languages than Finnish e.g. articles on Enhancing Shareholders’ Equality by a Take-Over Bid Rule in the Articles of an Association (1994), Securitization in Finland (1996), Vinstutdelning i form av annan egendom än kontanta pengar (~ Dividend payments in other forms than cash, 1999), Skiljemannapraksis vid inlösen av minoritetsaktier i Finland (~ Arbitration procedure in the squeeze-out of minority shares, 2002), The regulation of financial services in Finland (2003), Finland is a civilized country - now in takeovers as well (2007) and Corporate Governance in Finland – a combination of legislation and self-regulation (2017).