Setterwalls – Sweden’s oldest law firm – celebrates 140 years!

For 140 years Setterwalls have been the choice in Sweden for leading companies and financial institutions across the world for a diverse range of complex legal and business matters.

In 1878, the prominent Swedish lawyer Nils Setterwall, founded what is now the oldest law firm in Sweden. Committed to satisfying demand for high quality legal services from domestic and foreign companies and from entrepreneurs with international operations. Setterwalls’ philosophy from the start has been to achieve a commercial understanding of our client’s objectives and provide fast and efficient solutions.

Setterwalls being well-equipped to meet the new digital commercial and legal challenges of the marketplace, is proud to still be able to offer the professional traditions so firmly established 140 years ago by our founder.

Already in the old days the outset was international with shipping and maritime lawyers. Today, Setterwalls is one of Sweden’s largest and leading true partnership full-services law firms, with approximately 200 lawyers. Today the largest practices are in M&A, Tech and Dispute Resolutions.

Located in the heart of the largest cities of Sweden; Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, we have an excellent working environment. Setterwalls’ determination to remain competitive is reflected not only in the values selecting and training new employees but also in our on-going investments in new technology.

Sweden has an export-driven economy and an investment-friendly environment. The country is a global leader in innovation with openness to international ownership. Sweden is ranked as one of the world’s most innovative countries and is ranked 2018 as no. 1 of the Bloomberg Innovation Index (together with South Korea). Sweden heads the Forbes 2017 ranking for “Best Countries for Business” and has a GDP growth in the very top of the OECD countries.

At Setterwalls, we certainly agree and we see a booming activity in Capital Markets and M&A with foreign acquisitions and establishments in Sweden triggering a heavy workload. The Swedish IPO market has been red-hot in 2017 with over 60 listings in 2017 and broke a European record in June with 5 listings in a single day. Stockholm, not only being the financial capital of the Nordics, has grown into one of Europe’s tech hotspots, with start-ups born here becoming Unicorns as Skype, Spotify, King (parent to Candy Crush), Minecraft and Fintech companies as Klarna and iZettle. In Gothenbourg, we are proud of clients in the export industry such as Volvo, SKF and Akzo Nobel. In our Malmö office, there is a particular focus on Life Science and patent litigation with a share of 50 % or more of the larger patent court cases in Sweden. Also wind power energy, environmental and water law are a specialities in the Malmö office.