Public Procurement Law

Ilona Pilkama-Paajanen Senior Legal Counsel

Fondia Oyj

Tel: +358 20 7205 416 ilona.pilkama-paajanen@ fondia.com www.fondia.com

With nearly 25 years of experience, senior legal counsel Ilona Pilkama-Paajanen has extensive knowledge of public procurement, competition law, and more recently, sustainability matters, especially within the extensively regulated healthcare and wellbeing industry. She advises on both compliance and contentious matters. She worked as an attorneyat-law at Veikko Palotie & co Oy (nowadays Merilampi Oy) for 10 years, with a short period at Markert Court before joining Fondia Oyj.

Ilona regularly advises candidates and bidders, as well as contracting authorities, at the planning stage of public procurement, through the different procurement procedures, and during the contract term. She is a licensed trial counsel in Finland and has a proven track record in contentious public procurement matters at the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority, the Finnish Market Court, and the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court.

Ilona has provided advice in the context of major healthcare services and goods, as well as energy, transport, construction, and ICT projects. She has recently been advising clients in relation to framework agreements and dynamic purchasing systems, in-house exceptions, sustainability issues, and contract amendments to a large extent. Her clients include healthcare service providers, suppliers of medical and various other goods, construction and ICT companies, local authorities, public utility operators, as well as in-house companies.

She is a PhD Candidate at Aalto University School of Business and an experienced and confident lecturer. Ilona has been a member of the Disciplinary Board twice (20152017 and 2018-2020), which is responsible for supervising attorneys-at-law, public legal aid attorneys, and licensed trial counsels in Finland. She is also elected as a board member of the Finnish Corporate Responsibility Law Association (2022-2023).