Finnish Business Law Journal

Liikejuridiikka – Finnish Business Law Journal – invites submissions to the journal’s upcoming issues. Finnish Business Law Journal is a Finnish-based legal journal seeking to extend its reach to the entire Nordic region. It has nearly 15 years of tradition reaching the first publication of its predecessor – the Business Law Forum annual series of the Private Law Department of the University of Helsinki.

Finnish Business Law Journal is a forum for high quality legal research publications in Finnish, English and Swedish language. Finnish Business Law Journal has a JUFO 1 certification from the Finnish Publication Forum – a classification system of publication channels created by the Finnish scientific community to support the quality assessment of academic research.

The focus of the journal is on broadly understood business law. Both refereed articles and short writings, such as, case comments, book reviews, writings about changes in law and opponent’s statements, are published in Finnish Business Law Journal. We support open access publication and allow the writers to share their published articles via open access sites such as SSRN.com three months after the publication.

Schedule

Finnish Business Law Journal 3/2024 (to be published in December)
Peer-reviewed articles: 1.9.2024
Other writings: 15.9.2024

Finnish Business Law Journal 1/2025 (to be published in March)
Peer-reviewed articles: 1.12.2024
Other writings: 15.12.2024

If you are interested in publishing in the Finnish Business Law Journal, please contact the journal’s Editorial Secretary at henri.halila@helsinki.fi or eero.makela@helsinki.fi, or the Editor at daria.kozlowska-rautiainen@juridicum.su.se.

Guidelines for authors

  1. Writings must be submitted to the editor or editorial secretary of the publication by the deadline provided separately. Please use Word 2003 or a newer version of this program and send the writing in a .docx format.
  2. Authors do not receive remuneration for their writings.

Academic articles

  1. Both academic articles and other writings are published in Liikejuridiikka. All academic articles go through a peer-review process. Therefore, it is important that all articles delivered to the editor in accordance with the deadline. After the assessment by the referee the author can still apply the proposed changes and additions. After this phase the articles are to be returned by the date provided to the authors separately. The author should be prepared that his or her article can also be rejected in the peer-review process if the article does not fulfill the quality requirements of an academic article. Rejection of an article is possible only in case the insufficiencies in the article are so significant that it is impossible to redraft the article in such a way that it would fulfill the quality requirements of an academic article. Guidelines for peer-review are published in Liikejuridiikka (in Finnish).
  2. Articles may be written in Finnish, Swedish or English. The preferred length of academic articles is about 12–29 A4 pages in normal Word settings. If the article is significantly longer than the aforementioned page count, the submission should be discussed with the editorial secretary or the editor-in-chief. When finalizing the text, unwanted features such as hyphenation, full justification of the text, spelling and grammar check etc. should be removed.
  3. All articles should have the following settings:
    • Normal text
      Font: Times New Roman, 12 – Line spacing 1,5
    • Indented paragraphs
      Font: Times New Roman, 11 – Line spacing 1
    • Footnotes
      Font: Times New Roman, 10 – Line spacing 1
    • Headings
      Font: Times New Roman, 12 – Line spacing 1,5
      Headings should be written as normal text (note! do not use caps lock)
  4. Footnotes should be used in articles, with scientific sources cited in the footnotes rather than in the main text. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively. Please format the footnotes as follows:
    • Books
      • Format: Surname / Year / Page number(s) / Full stop
        • Example: Hemmo 2005 p. 225.
    • Articles
      • Format: Surname / Journal / Year / Page number(s) / Full stop
        • Example: Zitting LM 1978 pp. 725–732.
    • Official Sources, Cases, and Other References
      • Follow the established practice in legal science.
        • Examples:
          • HE 109/2005 p. 43.
          • Eurico SpA v Philipp Brothers 1987, pp. 215, 218.
    • Special Considerations
      • Use a long dash (–) between page numbers, not a short dash (-). To insert a long dash, press Ctrl + Minus key.
        • Example: pp. 17–19 (not 17-19).
      • Emphasis in Text
        • Emphasize text by using italics. Avoid using underlining or bolding.
      • Referencing Authors in Text
        • When mentioning an author for the first time, use the full name in italics.
          • Example: Gary Born.
        • In subsequent mentions, use only the surname without italics.
          • Example: Born stated that…
  5. The author can decide whether a separate bibliography is needed. Regardless of this decision, the following styles should be adhered to:
    • Reference list
      • The reference list should include the following information: the author’s name, title, publisher, place of publication, and the year of publication.
        • Examples
          • Barbanel, Jerry F. – Avery, Thomas W.: Avoiding the electronic disclosure money pit: Strategies for maximizing cost savings and winning cases. In Howell, David J. (ed.): Electronic Disclosure in International Arbitration. New York 2008, pp. 221–229.
          • Brekoulakis, Stavros L: Third parties in international commercial arbitration New York 2010.
      • If citing an article, the reference list should include the author’s name, article title, publication name, year, volume and issue number, and page numbers.
        • Examples
          • Darwazeh, Nadia: Document discovery and the IBA Rules on Evidence: A practitioner’s view. International Arbitration Law Review 2002 Vol. 5 Iss. 4, pp. 101–108.
          • Villa, Seppo: Rahoitusapu ja apuyhtiöt. Lakimies 2011, pp. 1322–1340.
      • Well-known collections of articles can be referred to using standard abbreviations. In case of doubt, please contact the editorial board.
      • If the author chooses to include a bibliography, it should be formatted as follows:

        Bibliography

        Literature and Other Sources
        • Commission Report, Law Commission. Report No. 154. Law of Contract: The Parol Evidence Rule. Command Papers 5th series 970 1986.
        • Lewison, Kim: The Interpretation of Contracts. London 2004.

          Cases

          England
          Bank of Credit & Commerce International v Ali [2001] 1 AC 251

          Finland
          Supreme Court
          KKO 1996:68, 2003:60, 2008:102.

          Court of Appeals
          HHO 6.6.1996 S 1223/95
  6. The authors can use direct quotes in the text. The quote is written in quotation marks, not italics. If the quote is more than 4 lines long, it should form a separate paragraph. Please avoid unnecessary direct quotes.
  7. Above the article text there should be a summary presenting main findings of the article (abstract) written in italics. The abstract’s length is maximum half a page in normal text settings.
  8. The title of the writing should be written in normal text (not capitalized). If the article is written in Swedish or Finnish language, an English translation of the tile should be provided. There is no need to provide a table of contents of the writing.
  9. Authors are asked to provide their name, title, workplace and position. Information about the authors is not to be provided e.g. in a footnote. There is a separate list of authors if Liikejuridiikka, where the information is published.

Writings other than academic articles

  1. Liikejuridiikka publishes also writings other than academic articles. Those are i.a. case comments, book reviews, various topical reports (e.g. about changes in law) and the opponents’ statements. The author is to inform the editors of the type of writing he or she is offering. Other writings do not go through a peer-review process.
  2. Other writings are to be written according to the above guidelines (see points 5–11). Other writings do not have a set page limit. Typically, other writings are about 3–29 long. Other writings do not require an abstract and the need of a bibliography should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. There is no need to provide a translation of the title of other writings.

Editorial Board

Ville Pönkä, Chair of the Editorial Board, Professor

Kirsi-Maria Halonen, University Lecturer

Martti Häkkänen, Professor

Reijo Knuutinen, Professor

Matti Rudanko, Professor

Jarno Tepora, Professor Emeritus

Matti Turtiainen, Research Director

Veikko Vahtera, Professor

Editorial Team

Petra Hietanen-Kunwald, Editor-in-Chief, University Lecturer
Tel. +358 50 443 4187, petra.hietanen-kunwald@aalto.fi

Daria Kozlowska-Rautiainen, Editor, University Lecturer
daria.kozlowska-rautiainen@juridicum.su.se

Henri Halila, Editorial Secretary, Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki
Tel. +358 50 343 4096, henri.halila@helsinki.fi

Eero Mäkelä, Editorial Secretary, Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki
Tel. +358 50 472 1329, eero.makela@helsinki.fi

Maximilian Granroth, Editorial Secretary, Doctoral Researcher, University of Helsinki

Liikejuridiikka (suomeksi) »