Market Court

The Market Court is an independent and impartial special court functioning in the administrative branch of the Ministry of Justice. The Court deals with cases concerning market law, competition law, supervisory matters, public procurement and intellectual property rights (IPR).

The Market Court is located in Helsinki and it has jurisdiction in the entire country. The Market Court has approximately 45 employees.

The Market Court is led by a Chief Judge. The other members of the Market Court are Market Court Judges and Market Court Engineers. In the preparation of matters, the Judges are assisted by Market Court Clerks. Office personnel take care of the administrative and office tasks. Moreover, there are part-time expert members working at the Market Court.

In addition to the general qualification requirements for a judge, a Market Court Judge must have expertise in competition law or supervisory matters, public procurements, IPR matters or market law. The qualification requirements for a Market Court Engineer are a higher academic degree in technical sciences and expertise in patent matters. The expert members are required to have, in addition to a relevant higher academic degree, expertise in the case category that they deal with at the court. The qualification requirement for a Market Court Clerk is some other higher academic degree in law than Master's degree in international and comparative law. The office personnel often have upper secondary or lower third level education.