LAWIN Advised One of Europe's Leading Business Schools

LAWIN Riga office advised the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE), one of Europe's leading business schools, on the entire process of restructuring and change of ownership of the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga (SSE Riga), involving negotiations with the current SSE partner – the Government of Latvia.

This transaction involved the SSE and the Government of Latvia (represented by the University of Latvia) transferring their shareholdings in SSE Riga, a leading business school in the Baltics, to a non-profit foundation established by the founders and their legal successors and social partners. The school required complete restructuring due to this change of ownership, while preserving its academic independence and high standards of quality required by the SSE brand which will be used by the school under a separate licence agreement.  

Inese Lazdupe, senior associate at the LAWIN Riga office led the project, which presented complex legal issues and required a high degree of negotiation skill and diplomacy in working with the high-level parties and other involved stakeholders.

This project is socially important in Latvia and the entire Baltic region, because SSE Riga is the only business school in the Baltic States, which provides an internationally competitive business education  to residents of this region; therefore it is constantly in the spotlight of the general public and mass media. Implementation of the project was both directly and indirectly supported by the governments of the Republic of Latvia and the Kingdom of Sweden.

SSE is one of Europe’s leading business schools and has 100 years of history offering a first-class, internationally competitive education in business administration and economics on a bachelor and master level, along with highly regarded MBA, PhD and executive education programs. SSE Riga was established in 1993 as a joint project between the Stockholm School of Economics under a mandate of the government of the Kingdom of Sweden and the Latvian government with the purpose of offering an internationally competitive managerial education and training in business.