About

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last two years?

Solør Bioenergy Group is a northern European energy company. In 2003 it operated one site in Norway, whereas it now operates 150 sites in Sweden, Norway and Poland. The company grows constantly organically as well as through bolt-on acquisitions. The most important transaction over the last years is probably the purchase of the Pemco Energi group in 2018. Pemco, now Solør Bioenergy Varme, offers local heating solutions that complement our district heating. This means, for example, that we are able to offer single customers a heating solution where it would not be cost-efficient to build and maintain a district heating plant. Over time, when more customers in the same area want to buy our heating solutions, we may upgrade the local heating solutions to district heating. Local heating may also be a solution for new customers where building permits and other restrictions would not allow district heating. Thus, the purchase of Pemco has broadened our customer base, allowed for cross-selling of different heating solutions and introduced a new M&A pipeline. The M&A pipeline has been financed by a syndicate of European banks and international infrastructure debt funds. The latest financing round was closed in April this year and we expect to go to the market early 2020 to raise new financing in order to meet our growth plan.

Solør Bioenergy Group is very seldom involved in litigation. However, the group has an ongoing tax dispute with the Swedish Tax Agency regarding a post-acquisition refinancing of a district heating portfolio acquired from E.On in 2014. The Swedish Supreme Administrative Court is reviewing the case and we expect a final, positive outcome of the case before year-end.

In what ways do you see the in-house legal role evolving in your region over the next few years?

The in-house legal role is generally reflecting the big trends in society and business. At Solør Bioenergy Group we expect a continued high M&A activity across businesses, which generally require in-house lawyers to step up as project managers and evolve their business skills rather than acting as legal experts. We also foresee higher investments in technology and AI, further pushing automation and facilitating “low end” legal work too leave room for important business decisions and high end legal work. Another trend we see is increased regulations on data handling, most significantly GDPR, which raises the bar for companies to evolve structured processes of handling information in cooperation with in-house and, depending on the situation, external counsel. In the Nordics there is a strong awareness of environmental issues, which will likely increase the focus on environmental matters also for in-house lawyers. This could be either directly, through new laws, regulations or standards, but also indirectly through invention, new patents and business models.

What would you say are the unique qualities required to be successful as an in-house lawyer in your industry?

I can only guess what qualities are required to be successful in the energy industry as a whole, as it is dominated by large organisations. However, in Solør Bioenergy Group’s six man strong management team a thorough understanding of the business and the business environment is required. Further, the in-house lawyer must be the one who thinks of formal requirements, legal restrictions and considering whether the legal aspects could be added to the operational problem-solving tool box. We have several examples where operational issues, for instance financing, competition and employment matters, have been possible to solve through a legal aspect overlooked by or unknown to the operational team.

How do you handle the different jurisdictions within your company’s remit? Particularly cross border matters in Sweden and Denmark.

We have long-standing relationships with law firms in our key jurisdictions. I know the lawyers I work with in Norway and Sweden, some have been friends and colleagues since ten years and have my complete trust. The relationships are very informal and, I hope, mutually beneficial.   

Have any new laws, regulations or judicial decisions greatly impacted your company’s business or your legal practice?

The EU has decided to implement a directive on emissions that will require new investments in some of our older district heating plants before 2025. As we have the technology and know-how to transform “dirty” plants – for instance, Polish coal plants – into environmentally friendly bio plants this might be more of an opportunity than a cost for Solør Bioenergy Group. Apart from regulations on emissions we are working in a relatively stable legal environment. As district heating company, like water and electricity companies, has a natural monopoly we are of course sensitive to the implementation or amendment of price regulations that affect our profitability. Having said that, price regulations as such might not be a bad thing.

Looking forward, what technological advancements do you feel will impact the role of in-house legal teams in the future the most?

In addition to AI and automation, which I mentioned before, there is a general increase in awareness regarding cyber security. In our specific case we manage essential heating infrastructure in North Europe, which is extremely important to keep safe from all kinds of intrusions that may disrupt our heat delivery. In other businesses cyber security might not be a matter of life and death, but breach can have very serious personal and/or financial consequences.

What can law firms do to improve their services to the legal department?

Solør Bioenergy Group has been through large due diligence processes on a yearly basis since 2014 for raising new equity and debt. Based on those process I think law firms could generally increase transparency on who is doing what, when and why. There also seems to be room for some improvement when it comes to storing information, as we are often asked to provide information that we have already provided.