A juicy dispute is behind the Helsinki Hall – A millionaire is demanding a huge sum

In its subpoena, Kaavoitus ja Kiinteistö oy demands that the Finnish owners of Helsinki Halli oy make a larger amount of payments than the hall company has made so far.

A costly litigation case is being heard in the Helsinki District Court, in which the plaintiff is Kaavoitus ja Kiinteistö oy and the defendant is Helsinki Halli oy.

The Helsinki Arena, formerly known as Hartwall Arena, is now under Finnish ownership after Trevian Kasvu LP ky received an exemption from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to purchase the hall company’s C-series shares from the Russian oligarchs Gennady Timchenko and the Rotenberg family, who own the hall and are subject to EU sanctions.

However, the purchase process was long, which resulted in the hall standing empty in Pasila for more than three years since the start of Russia’s large-scale war of aggression in the spring of 2022. The deal was finally completed in February this year.

Challenge application

Before the sale, the hall was in danger of falling into poor condition. Finnish banks, citing EU sanctions, refused to mediate payments for the Russian-owned hall company, so the company had to rely on third parties to pay its bills. One of these parties was Kaavoitus ja Kiinteistö oy.

Kaavoitus ja Kiinteistö paid the Helsinki Hall bills for over a million euros. In addition, Kaavoitus ja Kiinteistö bought one box from the arena for 200,000 euros. According to Kaavoitus ja Kiinteistö, however, there was a condition in the contract of sale according to which the buyer could cancel the box sale, so that the seller would have to pay, among other things, 100,000 euros in addition to returning the purchase price.

According to the plaintiff, Helsinki Hall paid KK Oy just over 1.2 million euros at the end of February this year as compensation for loans and other arrangements. The loan agreements were made with the Russian ownership base before the sale of the hall shares to Finns.

In KK Oy’s view, the hall company should have also paid interest and commissions according to the contracts, but this has not happened. KK Oy is now demanding that the current owners of Helsinki Hall pay almost 1.7 million euros, including late payment interest, as well as legal costs.

In the background

The founder of Kaavoitus ja Kiinteistö oy is a millionaire businessman from Satakunta, Jukka Piisi. Iltalehti reached out to Piisi for more information.

– I won’t start [commenting] on unfinished matters. I have no desire at this stage, Piisi replied.

Piisi estimates that the legal process will take a long time and he does not expect the matter to be resolved necessarily this year.

Hallihtiö’s position

Helsinki-halli’s main owner Heikki Viitikko opened the company’s position to Iltalehti by email.

– The pending matter began about a year ago, during the time of the company’s former owners, Viitikko began.

– We are currently working on a response to the district court. At this stage, I can only state that the claims now presented to the company are unfounded, contrary to sanctions legislation and the Companies Act, and the company will therefore request that the district court reject the plaintiff’s claims in their entirety, Viitikko continued.

Viitikko did not want to comment further as the legal case is still pending.