NORWAY Trends and Developments Contributed by: Christian Reusch, Jenny Sandvig, Oda Lauksund Engamo and Therese Sætre Løfsgaard, Advokatfirmaet Simonsen Vogt Wiig
• International sources, such as the IBA Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration, may be relevant when interpreting and applying the impartiality requirement in Section 14 of the Arbitration Act. This is especially the case when lawyers act as arbitrators. • Whether a lawyer should be disqualified from act- ing as an arbitrator due to a client relationship with a party must be decided by an overall assessment, taking into account the nature, scope, and duration of the client relationship. The assessment should also consider the lawyer’s personal involvement in the matter, their role in the firm, and the size of the firm. • As a starting point, a lawyer is disqualified from serving as an arbitrator where the lawyer’s firm has a significant ongoing matter for a party during the arbitration. This applies even if the work is handled by other lawyers in the firm. However, an overall assessment as described above may lead to a dif- ferent conclusion. Furthermore, the Supreme Court addressed the arbi- trator’s duty of disclosure, set out in Section 14 of the Arbitration Act, and its impact on the impartiality assessment. The Court noted that: • Arbitrators have a broad duty of disclosure: they must inform the parties, normally in writing, of any circumstances that may give rise to doubts about their impartiality. • To fulfil this duty, the arbitrators themselves must ensure that the parties are informed. It is not suf- ficient for the information to reach the parties from other sources. • If the arbitrator has been appointed by the parties, the information must be sent to them directly. If the arbitrator has been appointed by the district court, it is sufficient to provide the information to the court. • A failure by the arbitrator to comply with the duty of disclosure may indicate that the arbitrator does not meet the requirement of impartiality, in borderline cases. The Court’s assessment of the case at hand In this case, the Supreme Court found that the law- yer had failed to fulfil the duty of disclosure, as he
informed neither the parties nor the appointing district court of his firm’s client relation with one of the parties. The Supreme Court nevertheless considered the lawyer an impartial arbitrator. In particular, the Court emphasised the sporadic and limited nature of the client relationship, the lawyer’s lack of involvement in the matter and the considerable size of the firm he was affiliated with. Recent Clarifications on Provisional Security Interim measures in environmental disputes Introduction Climate change and global warming have long been widely discussed topics, mainly in political arenas. Over the past years, we have seen a development internationally which suggests that these concepts are no longer merely a matter of politics, but also of law. This notion recently got a stronger foundation, with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the International Court of Justice in The Hague both ruling that states are obliged under international law to protect their citizens and the environment from man-made climate change. Similarly, there have been important legal develop- ments on climate matters in Norway. In a recent deci- sion of 11 April 2025, published as HR-2025-677-A, the Supreme Court was asked to clarify the courts’ authority to grant interim measures in instances where the claim is based on the argument that rules ensur- ing environmental considerations have been violated. Background and issues The case arose from a lawsuit brought by two environ- mental organisations against the Norwegian state. The organisations claimed that the authorities’ decision to approve a plan for the development and operation of three oil fields in the North Sea was invalid because the state had failed to assess the climate impacts of burning oil and gas from the fields. They also sought an interim measure to halt operations at the oil fields pending final judgment in the case. The case reached the Court of Appeal, which rejected the plaintiffs’ application for an interim measure, hold-
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