Eerik Heldna, who until July 2017 was the Deputy Director General of Estonia's Internal Security Service, is joining the Nove law firm as Legal Counsel and Head of Corporate and Regulatory Investigations and Anti-Corruption.
In his new role, according to Nove, Heldna will advise the firm's clients on "corporate internal investigations, maintenance of confidential information, and risk management whilst focusing on risk mitigation in destination countries for companies entering foreign markets and on advising foreign companies entering the Estonian market."
Nove describes Heldna as having "valuable long-term experience in preventing corruption endangering national security and ensuring the economic security of Estonia. According to Heldna, "that, however, can only happen in cooperation with private enterprises. Experience like that is first and foremost important in sensitive economic sectors such as the defence industry, transit, extensive financial operations, and energetics where the state and private enterprises must be reliable partners. After all, we are all working towards a wealthier and safer Estonia."
In addition, according to Nove, Heldna "plans to put his existing investigative experience to use in supporting clients prevent, discover, and prove cases of abusive conduct by company employees and executives along with offering advisory services on gathering evidence necessary for a successful litigation."
Heldna has 20 years of experience as a criminal police and security officer, and he has worked as a senior manager at the Narcotic Crimes Department of the Criminal Police in Tallinn, the Criminal Department of the Northern Police Prefecture, and the Central Criminal Police. For the past eight years Heldna worked for the Estonian Internal Security Service heading the proceedings of corruption offenses. According to Nove, "under his leadership many of the ISS procedural priorities were restructured and an approach of preventing security threats at the earliest possible stages was adopted. Heldna has also headed many significant criminal intelligence operations that led to convictions and has played an important role in the field of international cooperation."
Arnold Sinisalu, the Director General of the Estonian Internal Security Service, recognized Heldna for his work. "Eerik has been a capable and proactive leader whose contribution to the development of the organization can hardly be overestimated," said Sinisalu. In addition, the President of the Estonian Republic has awarded Eerik Heldna the Iron Cross of the Cross of the Eagle.
Heldna as graduated from the Police College of the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences (where he specialized in pre-trial investigation) and obtained a Master's degree in Public Administration at Tallinn University of Technology and a Master's degree in law at Tartu University.
According to Urmas Volens, Nove co-founder, the addition of Heldna allows the firm to take "increasingly stronger steps in implementing its strategy based on distinct specialization, the combination of practical, academic and legislative experience, and focus." According to Volens, "our first year of activity has shown that legal counseling based on such principles is highly valued by clients. We plan to remain true to those general principles in the future as well. Of course, this entails extremely high standards set both for ourselves as well as anyone who joins our office, standards that Eerik completely meets. In addition to that, his immaculate record up to now proves he follows the same underlying values as Nove, resulting in a team stronger than ever."
