Legal prism — 2026-10-08

Section 11 a of the Act (1973:188) on Leasehold Tribunals and Rent Tribunals prevents the rent tribunal from examining the landlord’s claim for higher rent unless negotiations under the negotiation order have taken place concerning the disputed issue.

Decisions under the Act may be appealed to the Svea Court of Appeal within three weeks pursuant to Section 31, but decisions appointing or removing an arbitrator may not be appealed.

Core issue

When rent negotiations in Värmland reach an impasse, the parties do not await a court judgment but instead turn to the rent tribunal or an arbitrator, while in the meantime a rent applies that may later be adjusted retroactively. It is the very structure of the negotiation procedure that means protracted negotiations carry no sanction: no party is compelled to reach agreement within a specified time. The news item, an opinion article by Fastighetsägarna Värmland, therefore calls, according to the author, for reform of the Rent Negotiation Act (1978:304). The precise legal issue is what avenues are available when negotiations under a negotiation order have ended without agreement. Section 24 of the Rent Negotiation Act gives both the landlord and the tenant the right to apply to the rent tribunal for amendment of the rental terms in the respect covered by the negotiations. The same applies where negotiations have encountered an obstacle not attributable to the party seeking the amendment. The matter may instead be referred to an arbitrator, and the arbitrator’s handling of the matter is governed by the Act (2022:1657) on Dispute Resolution within the Framework of Certain Collective Rent Negotiations pursuant to Section 23 c.

Legal assessment

Under Section 5 of the Rent Negotiation Act, a negotiation order imposes an obligation on the landlord to negotiate on its own initiative regarding a rent increase, unless the increase concerns an optional add-on and corresponds at most to a price recommended by the parties to the negotiation order.

• Organisations are not parties to proceedings under Section 22; a property owners’ organisation or tenants’ organisation is not a party to the tribunal proceedings.
• Section 30 of the Rent Negotiation Act provides that matters under the Act are examined by the rent tribunal, while damages under Section 8, second paragraph, are examined by a general court.
• The material contains no case law; accordingly, no specific cases can be relied upon.

Consequences

For tenants: continued uncertainty as to which rent applies, with a risk of retroactive increase once the tribunal or arbitrator finally decides.

• For property owners: uncertain revenue for large parts of the year, which, according to the article, hampers planning for operations, maintenance and investments.
• For parliamentary parties: the article calls for reform: a statutory right for landlords to refer a dispute to an arbitrator without a separate agreement, a limited negotiation period, and simplified rent tribunal proceedings with decisions based on objective economic criteria.
• Without legislative amendment, only the existing avenues remain: application to the rent tribunal under Section 24 or arbitration under Section 23 c.

If the claim is upheld, the marketing will be prohibited and the court may attach a conditional fine to the prohibition; a materially significant level will be guided by the SEK 3.5 billion in lottery revenues and the precedent from the Advea case.

By way of reference, in the case against the credit intermediary Advea, the Patent and Market Court attached an interim conditional fine totalling SEK 3.5 million to its decision.

Core issue

Svenska Postkodföreningen faces civil injunctive proceedings before the Patent and Market Court, where the practical consequence is an injunction backed by a conditional fine assessed against lottery revenues of just over SEK 3.5 billion (2025 annual report). The Consumer Ombudsman’s statement of claim concerns a single Instagram advertisement, but its purpose is for the court to determine what the moderation requirement in Chapter 15, Section 1 of the Gambling Act (2018:1138) means for marketing on social media. The precise legal issue is whether a video featuring raining prize cheques, gold-coloured text referring to SEK 101 million, and a time-limited half-price offer with a final purchase date exceeds the threshold of moderation. The decisive rules are Chapter 15, Section 1 of the Gambling Act, the Swedish Consumer Agency’s general guidelines KOVFS 2025:2 and, as regards the form of sanction, the Marketing Practices Act’s system for coupling prohibitions with conditional fines. Case law is limited, particularly in relation to the short, visual and algorithmically distributed formats used on social media. In autumn 2022, the Riksdag rejected the bill’s adjusted moderation requirement on the ground that case law was in the process of being established, leaving the court room to fill the gap.

Legal assessment

The Consumer Ombudsman’s assessment rests on an overall assessment of two interacting elements:

• The presentation makes the lottery socially attractive, something in which everyone ought to participate, which conflicts with the guidelines’ requirement for factual and balanced marketing (KOVFS 2025:2, section 2.2.2.1).
• A time-limited half-price offer with a final purchase date creates an impression of urgency, i.e. exhortatory messaging that may encourage an ill-considered decision (KOVFS 2025:2, section 2.2.2).
• The guidelines cover the presentation, content and design in the selected medium; marketing must not be intrusive or liable to attract particular attention (section 2.2.1).
• The Gambling Act requires information to be limited to facts about the lottery and presented as objectively as possible.
• Level of conditional fine: the Consumer Ombudsman seeks a conditional fine and refers to lottery revenues of SEK 3.5 billion.
• The Swedish Consumer Agency’s 2025 general guidelines are not binding, but a court judgment would carry greater weight than the guidelines as a source of law.

Consequences

• A judgment would establish precedent on what moderation means in social media and would have implications far beyond Postkodlotteriet, similar to the misleading job advertisements case against a law firm.
• For licence holders in the gambling market, this entails concrete requirements: limit information to facts about the lottery, and avoid time pressure and exhortatory elements such as final purchase dates and half-price offers.
• Postkodlotteriet must now respond to the Consumer Ombudsman’s objections before the court.

In such circumstances, the tenant has the same rights in relation to Zlatan and Helena Seger as if they had granted the tenancy directly to him.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the assessment and found a community of interest between the couple and the letting company in relation to the tenant.

Core issue

The legal position for Ibrahimovic and Seger is now final: the Supreme Court has refused leave to appeal, and the Court of Appeal’s judgment stands as the legal outcome. The tenant may therefore remain in occupation with the same status as a direct tenant, despite the couple having terminated the contract. The precise legal issue was whether an arrangement through a letting company could be asserted against the property owners themselves. The decisive provision is Chapter 12, Section 45a of the Swedish Land Code, which applies when two conditions are met:

• there is a community of interest between the property owner and the grantor of the tenancy;
• having regard to that community of interest and the other circumstances, it may be presumed that the legal relationship is being used to circumvent statutory provisions enacted for the benefit of the tenant. In such circumstances, the tenant has the same rights in relation to the property owner as if the tenancy had been granted directly to him. This is the construction applied by the District Court.

Legal assessment

The Stockholm District Court held that the tenant has the same rights in relation to Ibrahimovic and Seger as if they had granted the tenancy directly to him. The Court of Appeal also considered that the legal relationship could be presumed to have been used to circumvent legislation on security of tenure and reasonable rent. The tenant had also relied on Supreme Court case law and argued that he had paid excessive rent under an alleged nominee arrangement for the benefit of the property owner. In practical terms, the rule pierces the intermediary:

• the tenant’s security of tenure is assessed as if the agreement had been concluded directly with the property owner;
• the tenant may therefore assert rights, including reasonable rent, against the couple personally;
• the couple’s termination of the contract does not have the intended effect. The Act (1985:277) on Certain Nominee Relationships concerns, under Section 1, restrictions on land acquisitions and is not the applicable norm in this tenancy dispute.

Consequences

For Ibrahimovic and Seger, the Supreme Court’s decision means that the tenant may remain in the apartment with the rights of a direct tenant. The couple cannot enforce the termination, and the tenant may in future have the reasonableness of the rent assessed against them. For the market, the judgment signals that granting a tenancy through one’s own letting company does not protect the property owner where a community of interest exists.

Notification for registration must be submitted to Kammarkollegiet no later than 30 days after the date on which the party subject to a notification obligation under Section 4 began conducting influence communication.

If the registered party has not conducted any influence communication during the period covered by the report, this must be stated in the report.

Core issue

The Riksdag has approved a limited lobbying register, and lobbyists will be subject to registration and reporting obligations with Kammarkollegiet, which will also serve as the supervisory authority. The register will enter into force in July 2027. The new regulation is contained in Act (2026:1459) on transparency in communications intended to influence political decisions. The key question is who must register, which contacts must be reported, and within what time limits.

Legal assessment

Under Act (2026:1459), the obligation applies only to contact intended to influence the preparation or determination of a matter, not to all contacts with political decision-makers or their staff. The material supports the following points:

• The notification must include the name, corporate identity number or personal identity number, and contact details (Section 6).
• The registered party must report on an ongoing basis which decision-makers and staff members have been contacted, the means of contact, and the approximate extent of the contacts; where the activity is carried out on behalf of another party, the client’s details must be stated (the reporting provisions, Section 10 in conjunction with Section 6).
• If no influence communication has been conducted during the relevant period, this must also be stated in the report (Section 10).
• Exceptions apply, inter alia, to documented participation in public meetings, legal advice subject to an advocate’s duty of confidentiality, and contacts that threaten national security or the life or health of an individual (Section 5).
• There is also no notification obligation where the influence communication is carried out on behalf of another party who is not itself subject to a notification obligation (Section 5). The delimitation is deliberately narrow: Annika Hirvonen (Green Party) called for a comprehensive register that would also capture lobbying ahead of party agreements such as the Tidö Agreement or the January Agreements, but the proposal did not gain support. Such informal influence prior to the formal legislative process is therefore not covered. The register aligns with an existing transparency framework: members of the Riksdag report their commitments and financial interests to the Riksdag Administration’s financial register under Act (1996:810), and gifts received are registered under Act (2016:1117). The material contains no case law on the new Act, which has not yet had time to be applied.

Consequences

For tobacco lobbyists and other interest organisations, July 2027 will bring a concrete compliance burden: registration with Kammarkollegiet and periodic reporting of contacts, including nil reports.

• For prevention organisations such as Tobaksfakta, the register provides a tool for tracking formal lobbying, but not influence exerted through party negotiations; expectations should therefore be calibrated to the register’s limited scope.
• For law firms, the exception for advice subject to confidentiality may reduce the need for registration within that group.
• Kammarkollegiet is the supervisory authority; the material does not state which sanctions apply in the event of failure to notify or report.
• Next step: entry into force in July 2027.