About

Beginning his legal career in the public sector with the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Fisheries and Aquaculture as a legal advisor, Dag Ove Solsvik then took on a role as a judge with a district court in Norway handling both criminal and civil cases. He eventually acted as judge for hundreds of cases, an experience which undoubtedly marks him out as something of a rarity among the in-house legal profession. He first moved to DNV GL’s head offices in Oslo after a period with boutique law firm Kyllingstad Kleveland (now merged into Selmer), and first moved to Shanghai to take on DNV GL Group’s legal operations across the entire Asia Pacific region in 2013. ‘Since I came to Asia Pacific a large part of the job has been to effectively manage changes in the organisation, both within the legal team but also within the larger DNV GL Group as an adviser to many management teams in the region, and I was also lucky to be a more integrated part of some of the regional business teams’, he says. ‘In addition, typical work under my responsibility includes advising the divisional, regional and country management teams on various legal issues such as contracts, claims and litigation, governmental affairs and statutory requirements, restructuring, M&A and other legal issues that arise in day-to-day operations’. The changes he has initiated in the legal team in the region, as well as in the global team, have been many and varied. Solsvik explains that his focus has been on getting the legal team to be more ‘integrated and proactive towards clients in order to be perceived as a business partner rather than only a gatekeeper’. He has also pioneered the establishment and use of DNV GL’s global law firm panel. In doing so, the focus have been based around a robust reporting and data collection programme, which has led to a increase in the efficiency and more control and transparency around DNV GLs use of external law firms. Solsvik has also been extremely active in terms of project work and is seen as a significant contributor on both legal and commercial aspects in various transactions and has, on occasions, been appointed (or de facto acted) as the project manager for M&A projects. The most recent example of completed transactions where Solsvik contributed was the acquisition of shares in the blockchain company VeChain, where DNV GL took a minority ownership position. Solsvik says that; ‘For me this has been a great opportunity to get familiar with new technology and guide the company in an area with many new, different and immature legal challenges but where we see a significant opportunity to strengthen and modernise our current service offering, as well as the potential new services blockchain technology may open for’. In late 2018 Solsvik took a global role in DNV GL, as head of litigation, claims and insurance.