NORWAY Trends and Developments Contributed by: Christian Reusch, Jenny Sandvig, Oda Lauksund Engamo and Therese Sætre Løfsgaard, Advokatfirmaet Simonsen Vogt Wiig
a defendant from liability for legal costs where com- pelling grounds make this reasonable. Because that discretion is exercised only once the case has been decided, there is ordinarily no adequate basis at the arrest stage to conclude, on the balance of probabili- ties, that the plaintiff will be entitled to full recovery of costs. Hence, the Court held that, prior to a judgment or order awarding costs, it is not possible to prove, on the balance of probabilities, an entitlement to recover legal costs. Accordingly, the Supreme Court conclud- ed that such claims cannot be secured by arrest under Sections 32 1 and 33 3 of the Dispute Act. One of the three judges dissented, concluding that courts must, in principle, be authorised to order arrest to secure a prospective award of legal costs. Litigation and AI Introduction AI is here to stay in Norwegian litigation. It offers sig- nificant opportunities to streamline time-consuming tasks such as fact gathering, document review, and drafting pleadings. However, when it comes to legal research, AI’s limitations have become increasingly apparent. Growing awareness of AI hallucinations in legal research In recent years, there have been several reports of lawyers, and even judges, citing fictitious legal sourc- es hallucinated by AI, particularly in the United States. More recently, a similar incident found its way to the Norwegian litigation community. In April 2025, the Supreme Court received a sub- mission that included non-existent statutory provi- sions and preparatory works hallucinated by AI. In response, the Court updated its litigation guide for lawyers, which now includes a new section on the use of AI tools in proceedings before the Supreme Court. The new Section provides that, inter alia, lawyers: • owe the same professional duties when using AI tools as they do otherwise;
• are personally responsible for all information included in their submissions, including legal con- tent; and • should use AI tools only in areas where they are sufficiently competent to verify that any AI-generat- ed legal content is authentic and accurate. On 5 September 2025, the Norwegian Bar Associa- tion also issued new guidelines on the use of AI. The guidelines emphasise that using AI in legal practice requires high standards of professional responsibility, quality assurance, information security, and regula- tory compliance. Further, the guidelines state that the responsible use of AI requires law firms to: • have clear policies and procedures for the use of AI; • ensure that employees receive necessary training and understand the risks associated with AI use; • conduct thorough assessments when procuring and deploying AI tools; • continuously monitor, evaluate, and improve their use of AI; and • ensure appropriate disclosure to clients, where relevant. AI developers’ limited access to Norwegian legal sources In Norway, the issue of AI hallucinations in legal research must be considered alongside another prob- lem, namely AI developers’ limited access to Norwe- gian legal sources. In Norway, legal sources are predominantly available via Lovdata, Norway’s primary legal database. With respect to AI, Lovdata’s terms of use prohibit using content from the database to train or develop AI mod- els. Consequently, AI developers have limited opportu- nities to train their models to identify, interpret, and accurately apply Norwegian legal sources. This may increase the risk of hallucinations and prevent AI tools from reaching their full potential in Norwegian litiga- tion.
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