The first half of 2021 was marked by the highest level of commercial real estate transactions ever. The latest reports and statistics show that this trend has continued in the last six months, and the total transaction volume is likely to exceed NOK 130-150 billion. This surpasses the record year of 2015, when the total transaction volume for commercial real estate was NOK 129 billion. The pandemic caused increased use of home office ...
First of all, we are proud of Jan Magne Langseth and Christian Reusch who assisted Bank Norwegian in a principle matter before the Supreme Court of Norway between Ikano Bank et al versus Bank Norwegian. The case concerned the use of competitor’s brands in key word advertising on Google ...
Gap between buyers’ and sellers’ valuation In the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the transactions market slowed down, and many drew similarities to the M&A and IPO markets in the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008. In March 2020, many deals were aborted or shelved as buyers’ and sellers’ price expectations did not meet. The uncertainty of the pandemic led to the traditional tools for bridging valuation gaps between parties being rendered useless ...
The Fit for 55-package To achieve EU’s Paris climate goals, the EU Commission presented in December 2019 the European Green Deal, including a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 (compared to 1990 levels) and become carbon neutral by 2050 ...
Media DNS-blocking of gaming sites proposal The Ministry of Culture submitted a proposal on 21 September 2021, which seeks to give the Norwegian Gambling Authority cause to force ISPs to enforce DNS blocking of unlicensed gaming sites that market their services to Norwegian players ...
The Supreme Court ended the «Google Ads» case saga The Supreme Court’s recent ruling (14 December 2021) in a case brought by several competing banks against Bank Norwegian ends a many-year-long saga concerning the use of competitors’ trademarks in search engine advertising. The competitors’ brought the case against Bank Norwegian before the Oslo City Court in 2017 ...
The Norwegian Data Protection Authority has notified Stortinget of an infringement fine of two million kroner and imposed an infringement fine of four million kroner on Østre Toten municipality. In both cases, the Authority emphasizes that it is a clear management responsibility to secure the business against such attacks, and that two-factor authentication, awareness-raising and an appropriate risk and vulnerability analysis are key measures ...
Maritime activities a natural habitat for Norwegians Norway is a maritime nation with an extensive coastline. A coastline dotted with towns and hamlets form where the inhabitants for generations have ventured onto the high seas to trade and exploit its natural resources. Today several hundred thousands of Norwegians work in ocean related industries, traditional once such as coastal and high seas fisheries and transportation, newer once such as aquaculture and oil & gas activities ...
The Chambers Global Guide ranks law firms and lawyers in more than 200 jurisdictions in selected disciplines. All subject areas are part of Chambers Europe, published in March. SVW is ranked within Banking and Finance, Corporate M&A, Oil and Gas, Dispute Resolution, and International & Cross Border Capabilities. SVW has two new lawyers entering the rankings, Sunniva Kinsella and Mathias Teir, as up and coming, as well as defending last year’s placements ...
The word on the street is that everybody wants an ERP system, but no one wants to use it. Or rather, no one will use it the way it has been set up as a standard solution. People in general do not like changes. Therefore, the ERP system must first be adapted so that the organisation can work in the same way as it did before. Only then will the organisation be willing to use it. Present ERP systems are better and more mature compared to the ERP systems only a few years ago ...
Any person will be given the right to demand information from enterprises affected by the Transparency Act It follows from the Transparency Act, Section 6, first paragraph, that any person has the right to information from an enterprise regarding how the enterprise addresses actual and potential adverse impacts according to the Section 4 of the Act ...
This year we also have four new individual lawyer rankings; Thomas Olsen, Band 1 and Malin Tønseth, Band 2 (TMT: Data Protection), Mathias Teir, Up & Coming (Corporate/M&A) and Sunniva Kinsella, Up & Coming (Banking and Finance). We are also very grateful that Tor Stokke and Gøran Mjelde Aarvik have strengthen their individual rankings with respectively Band 2 (TMT: Information Technology) and Band 3 (Real Estate) ...
Has the company an updated overview of current processing in 2022? The companies must have an overview of their processing activities, and it is important that this is up to date ...
Sustainability is a high priority for Simonsen Vogt Wiig (SVW), both for our own business and in our service offerings for customers. SVW have been certified as an Environmental Lighthouse («Miljøfyrtårn») for several years, and diversity and sustainability are among our key focus areas. In addition to working actively with defined sustainability goals internally, we advise on and deliver digital solutions within ESG, sustainability and the EU taxonomy ...
During the US President’s visit to Brussels, President Biden and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, stated on Friday 25 March that the parties have agreed on the main principles of a new agreement on the protection of personal data transferred to the United States. While a concrete agreement text has not yet been published, the US White House has published a Fact Sheet explaining the key principles to be expected in the final framework ...
A huge number of global and national initiatives have been made to appropriately handle sustainability challenges, including the European Green Deal and the relating Taxonomy. Both mandatory regulations and voluntary principles have been (and will continue to be) initiated and implemented, to ensure or encourage that ESG considerations also are taken into account with respect to financing ...
General information about legal enforcement Legal enforcement involves the securing and collection of monetary claims (and other claims) via the enforcement authorities. The general rules are set down in the Enforcement Act. The act sets out the conditions for securing and enforced settlement of monetary claims and governs the approach that must be taken in connection with this ...
Dramatic changes to energy supply security driven by geopolitical upheaval The EU energy transition is aimed at weaning Europe of its fossil fuel dependence and to enable Europe to reach climate emissions reduction targets. For the last 100 years, energy consumption other than transportation has been supplied almost entirely by hydropower. Norway in later years has been actively reducing its dependence on fossil fuel for road transport, costal shipping and the offshore supply fleet ...
The full-text judgement in English has not yet been released, but the press release with a summary of the judgement and its result can be accessed here. The case concerns an action brought by Poland seeking annulment of Article 17 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 on Copyright in the Digital Single Market ...
Prior to the entry into force of the FDI Screening Regulation on 11 October 2020, there was no EU-wide formalized cooperation among the Member States and the European Commission on these matters. In the EU, the European Commission’s strong expectation is that all 27 EU Member States will put national FDI screening mechanisms in place. A national screening mechanism in all 27 Member States serves to safeguard all individual Member States against potentially risky foreign investments ...
Morten V. Meyer is specialised within M&A, contract law, real estate and tax law. His clients are from a wide range of industries. He has extensive experience with reorganisations and with assisting buyers and sellers with the sale and purchase of shares and businesses. In addition, Morten holds a real estate agent insurance and assists buyers and sellers of real estate in all steps of the process, including as settlement manager ...
Camilla Flatum is specialised within shipping transactions and with ship- and bond financing. She has extensive experience from the shipping sector, assisting both owners, brokers, and financial institutions. Camilla also advises clients within the aviation sector, in financing matters especially. She has been associated with Simonsen Vogt Wiig since 2006, having previously worked for Nordic Trustee AS og Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB ...
Simonsen Vogt Wiig has lately experienced an exceptional increase in new transactions within the offshore supply market. The traditional corporate lending, real estate and shipping markets have also stayed strong with a high volume of transactions with both banks and an increasing number of alternative project-based funding sources ...
From the legislator, it is relevant to draw attention to the new rules on remote court sessions and remote examination. The rules are based on the principle that court proceedings in Norway shall take place in a meeting where the participants are physically present. However, the preparatory works maintains that it’s time to make these regulations more flexible, to ensure appropriate, modern and efficient court proceedings ...
Merger control is an integral part of competition law. The Norwegian Competition Authority (NCA) enforces the Norwegian merger control rules. Notification to the NCA is compulsory before closing and implementing all mergers and acquisitions that bring about a structural «change of control» in the market and exceed the national turnover thresholds ...
