Private Equity People

Aku Sorainen is the founder and senior partner of SORAINEN. Aku is of Finnish origin, but has worked as a lawyer in the Baltic States since 1993. He has significant experience in advising local and foreign corporations and investors in the Baltic States and Belarus. He has worked primarily in the fields of mergers & acquisitions (M&A) and real estate.

Aku is a recommended practitioner in many publications, including:

• PLC Which lawyer? for corporate and M&A practice;
• Chambers Global in corporate and commercial practices: "he frequently counsels domestic and foreign clients on high-profile transactions”;
• The Legal 500 acknowledges him for corporate and M&A practice;
• Chambers Europe in corporate and commercial law says: "Founder Aku Sorainen is well versed in the field of M&A. He frequently counsels domestic and foreign clients on acquisitions";
• Best Lawyers for corporate and M&A, private equity practices;
• European Legal Experts for corporate and finance practices in Estonia.

Aku wrote one of the first analyses of Baltic business law acts in English in the early 1990s as his master thesis, which the Association of Finnish Lawyers published in 1993 with the heading „A Foreign Investor in the Baltics: a legal study about the possibilities of a foreign investor to begin business activity and obtain real estate in the Baltics". Aku first established a law firm under his name in 1995 in Estonia. In 1997 this expanded to Latvia, in 1999 to Lithuania and in 2008 to Belarus.

Aku is one of the founding members of the Estonian Service Industry Association. The aim of the Association is to support development of high value-added service providers and knowledge based entrepreneurship in Estonia, to more clearly emphasise the value of investing in educated personnel, thus increasing the competitiveness of Estonian companies and the entrepreneurship environment. Additionally Aku was a founding member – and is still on the board – of NGO FinanceEstonia, a public private partnership with the aim of promoting export of Estonian financial services, related support services and technologies.

Moreover Aku is honorary consul of Malta in Estonia and supports various charitable projects, including being a partner for the Good Deed Foundation. 

Personal assistant: Brita Pae
Assistant's telephone: +372 6 400 902
Assistant's e-mail: brita.pae@sorainen.com

University of Lapland, Finland (LLM)
Riga Graduate School of Law under Stockholm School of Economics, Latvia (Diploma in International Trade Law)
Scils Finland in cooperation with the International University of Monaco (IUM) (Certificate of Business Administration)
Courses in various countries on M&A and International Business Law

Finnish Bar Association
Estonian Bar Association (first foreign citizen to be accepted)
International Bar Association
Member of the advisory board to the Estonian Investment Agency
FinanceEstonia (member of the supervisory board)
Latvian Bar Association (associate member)
Lithuanian Bar Association (associate member)