Legal prism — 2026-10-17

Section 24 of the Rent Negotiation Act (1978:304): where negotiations have concluded without agreement, the landlord and the tenant have the right to apply to the Rent Tribunal for an adjustment of the lease terms to the extent covered by the negotiations.

Section 11 a of the Act (1973:188): absent negotiations having taken place, the Tribunal may not entertain the claim for higher rent.

Core issue

Tenants in Värmland are not awaiting a judgment, but a decision that does not yet exist: negotiations have stalled and the next step is for the landlord or the tenant to apply to the Rent Tribunal for an adjustment of the lease terms. The article is a political appeal by Fastighetsägarna Värmland (Property Owners of Värmland) to the parliamentary parties to reform the Rent Negotiation Act (1978:304), not an announcement that any decision has already been made. The precise legal question is when and how the rent may be adjusted where negotiations under a negotiation scheme have concluded without agreement, and which authority then determines the matter. Key provisions in the underlying material:

• Section 30 of the same Act: matters under the Act are examined by a Rent Tribunal; however, damages under Section 8, second paragraph, are determined by the general courts.
• Section 11 a of the Act (1973:188) concerning Agricultural Tenancy and Rent Tribunals: the Rent Tribunal may not consider the landlord's claim for higher rent unless negotiations under the negotiation scheme have taken place regarding the matter in dispute.

Legal assessment

The system is premised on the negotiation scheme creating an obligation to negotiate before the dispute may be examined, and on the Tribunal being the mandatory terminal forum.

• Section 5 of the Rent Negotiation Act: the negotiation scheme entails an obligation on the landlord to initiate negotiations on a rent increase, unless the increase relates to an optional addition and does not exceed a price recommended by the parties to the negotiation scheme.
• Section 30 of the Rent Negotiation Act: the procedure before the Rent Tribunal is governed by the Act (1973:188) concerning Agricultural Tenancy and Rent Tribunals; organisations are not parties in a matter under Section 22.
• Section 15 of the Act (1973:188): the Tribunal may summon the parties to a hearing and, where personal attendance is required, impose an attachment fine; where numerous similar disputes arise, test cases may be examined and the remainder determined without a hearing.
• Section 23 c of the Rent Negotiation Act: the arbitrator's proceedings are governed by the Act (2022:1657) on dispute resolution within the framework of certain collective rent negotiations; a decision to appoint or remove an arbitrator under Sections 23 a–23 b may not be appealed under Section 31.
• The article proposes changes: a statutory right for landlords to refer disputes to an arbitrator without special agreements, limited negotiation periods, simplified proceedings before the Rent Tribunal, and decisions based on objective economic criteria. None of these changes is in force today; they are proposals, not current law.
• The underlying material contains no case law, so no precedential practice can be invoked.

Consequences

For the tenants in Värmland: continued uncertainty as to the rent payable during the negotiation period, with the risk that an increase decided later will be applied retroactively once the Tribunal or the arbitrator determines the matter.

• For property owners: unclear revenue for large parts of the year while operating, maintenance and investment costs continue to accrue, which, according to the article, impedes long-term planning.
• For the landlord, procedurally: a claim for higher rent will not be entertained by the Tribunal without negotiations having taken place under Section 11 a of the Act (1973:188); once negotiations have concluded, an application under Section 24 of the Rent Negotiation Act is available.
• For the parliamentary parties: the article places responsibility on the legislator, demanding reform of the Rent Negotiation Act (1978:304) rather than attributing fault to the conduct of individual negotiating parties.
• The next step in the concrete procedure: for one of the parties to apply to the Rent Tribunal for an adjustment of the lease terms under Section 24.

The provision requires moderation in the marketing of gambling to consumers and prohibits targeting persons under 18 years of age.

The CO cites the 2025 annual report, with lottery revenues of just over SEK 3.5 billion, as grounds for a relatively high conditional fine.

Core issue

Svenska Postkodföreningen now faces a main proceeding before the Patent and Market Court, in which the Consumer Ombudsman seeks an injunction against a single Instagram advertising film, combined with a conditional fine (vite). What is at stake is not merely the advertisement, but norm-setting: for the first time, the court will be called upon to clarify what the moderation requirement of the Gambling Act means for gambling advertising on social media. The precise legal question is whether the film — featuring rain of winning cheques, gold-coloured text about SEK 101 million, and a time-limited half-price offer — is "moderate" within the meaning of Chapter 15, Section 1 of the Gambling Act (2018:1138). The assessment is to be conducted as an overall evaluation in accordance with the Swedish Consumer Agency's general guidelines KOVFS 2025:2, which require factual and balanced marketing limited to relevant facts.

Legal assessment

The CO's objection is twofold and ties into specific guidance in KOVFS 2025:2:

• The film allegedly portrays the lottery as socially attractive — the guidelines (section 2.2.2.1) state that marketing should not convey the impression that gambling solves social or financial problems.
• The time-limited offer with a final purchase date allegedly creates urgency — section 2.2.2 is directed against urging messages that may lead to ill-considered decisions.
• The depiction of winnings is covered by section 2.2.1.1: marketing must not give the impression that the chances of winning are greater than they are, or that it is easy to win large sums. Case law is sparse, particularly with respect to social media. A reference case in the submission is the Adveca matter: when the CO sued the credit intermediary Advea, the Patent and Market Court attached an interim conditional fine totalling SEK 3.5 million to its decision, demonstrating the court's willingness to set tangible levels. Politically, in autumn 2022 the Riksdag rejected the Government's proposal for an adjusted moderation requirement in the bill "En förstärkt spelreglering" ("A Strengthened Gambling Regulation"), on the grounds that case law was in the process of being established — the gap is now for the court to fill. The conditional fine claim is calibrated to the Postcode Lottery's financial capacity: the CO cites the 2025 annual report, with lottery revenues of just over SEK 3.5 billion, as grounds for a relatively high fine.

Consequences

If the Postcode Association is found liable, an injunction against the film awaits, combined with a conditional fine whose level the court itself will determine; such a ruling would carry greater weight than the Consumer Agency's general guidelines and would become a benchmark for all gambling marketing on social media.

• For other licence holders, a precedent would mean that short, visual, and algorithmically distributed formats must be tested against the same overall requirement — urgency-creating offers and glorification of winnings would become legally risky.
• If the court acquits the lottery, the legal uncertainty remains, and the regulatory question may be revived politically.
• The next step in the proceedings: the Postcode Lottery is to respond to the CO's objections before the Patent and Market Court.

In practical terms, this means that the tenant may remain in the apartment with the same rights as a first-hand tenant, including the security of tenure and rent protection otherwise provided by Chapter 12 of the Land Code.

The Court of Appeal shared this assessment and further found a community of interest between the couple and the letting company in their dealings with the tenant.

Core issue

The legal position of Zlatan Ibrahimović and Helena Seger is now definitively unfavorable: the Court of Appeal's judgment has acquired legal force because the Supreme Court has refused leave to appeal. The core of the dispute is not whether the tenant is a good tenant, but whether an arrangement involving an intermediary letting company can be used to circumvent the protective provisions of tenancy legislation. The body of provisions determining the issue is the rules on security of tenure and reasonable rent in Chapter 12 of the Land Code, applied through the straw-man-style piercing of the corporate veil accepted by both the District Court and the Court of Appeal. The source material also includes the Act (1985:277) on Certain Straw-Man Arrangements, but in this civil-law dispute it is the courts' piercing assessment — not a prosecutor-led straw-man review — that carries the legal solution.

Legal assessment

The Stockholm District Court found that the legal relationship was presumed to have been "exploited in order to circumvent provisions of tenancy legislation that are to the benefit of N.N."

• Where such circumvention occurs, the tenant has the same rights against Ibrahimović and Seger as if the couple had let the tenancy directly to him.
• The tenant relied on case law from the Supreme Court and asserted that he had paid an over-rent within a straw-man arrangement intended to benefit the property owner.
• The couple maintained, in all instances, the same line — that the tenancy relationship occasionally interposed through a corporate structure does not affect the tenant's position — but this argumentation did not alter the courts' assessment.
• The source material shows that the protective provisions are mandatory: under, for example, Section 2 of the Act (2012:978) on the Letting of One's Own Dwelling, contractual terms that are to the tenant's disadvantage are without effect, illustrating the principle that the tenant's statutory rights cannot be negotiated away.
• Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeal applied any contractual term waiving security of tenure; the issue was instead resolved by piercing through to the property owners personally.
• The Supreme Court's leave to appeal is discretionary; a refusal of leave does not mean that the Supreme Court has expressed itself on the merits, but that the Court of Appeal's judgment stands as the final instance.

Consequences

For Ibrahimović and Seger, the outcome means that their termination of the tenancy agreement has no effect against the tenant, who enjoys security of tenure and the right to a reasonable rent as a first-hand tenant.

• For the tenant, it means that he may remain in residence and may, in principle, assert that the portion of the rent constituting over-rent corresponds to the reasonable rent prescribed by the legislation.
• For the market, the signal is that intermediary arrangements involving a community of interest between the property owner and the lessor do not shield the owner from the mandatory rules of tenancy law.
• The owners' remaining option to have the tenant vacate would be to wait until the grounds for termination in Chapter 12 of the Land Code can be activated in the customary manner; the source material contains no information indicating that such proceedings have been initiated.

The decisive legal question is whether a subtenant in a straw-man (bulvan) arrangement, where the property owner has let the property through a rental company in order to circumvent the Tenancy Act, is to be afforded the same strong security of tenure as a direct tenant – and the Supreme Court's decision to refuse leave to appeal leaves the Court of Appeal's affirmative answer standing.

Legal basis: Since no direct statutory basis has been provided, I must proceed from a general principle of law: in straw-man arrangements, where an intermediary is interposed between the owner and the actual tenant in order to circumvent the protective provisions of the Tenancy Act, the protection penetrates through to the real tenant, who is thereby treated as if the tenancy agreement had been entered into directly with the property owner. This is the line applied by the District Court and the Court of Appeal: since the couple had let the property through the rental company and then terminated the intermediary's agreement in 2023, the notice of termination could not affect the underlying tenant, who was entitled to remain in the premises with the rights of a direct tenant. The leave-to-appeal rule in Chapter 58, Section 1 of the Code of Judicial Procedure means that the Supreme Court hears a case only where the issue has precedential significance or for other reasons; if leave is refused, the lower court's judgment becomes final without any change to the legal position.

What case law says: The material shows that the District Court and the Court of Appeal uniformly applied the straw-man doctrine previously established by the Supreme Court (the "aforementioned straw-man judgment" of the Supreme Court invoked by the tenant) in the tenant's favour, and that the Supreme Court, by refusing leave to appeal, saw no reason to reconsider that line. The case law is thus consistent in favour of the tenant, although the Supreme Court's decision is not a new precedential ruling but a confirmation of the existing line. [PRAKTIKINE_REIKSME]: The practical consequence is that the argument "I have only terminated the intermediary, not the tenant" is now, in practice, unusable for property owners who use rental companies: the underlying tenant has direct-tenant protection, and the owner risks both the tenant remaining in the premises indefinitely and liability for litigation costs – here SEK 422,000 for the District Court and Court of Appeal proceedings. In the pending case before the Rent and Tenures Tribunal, in which the tenant has been given notice, the tenant may now rely on the final judgment as grounds for the same protection as a direct tenant, which substantially weakens a termination under Chapter 12 of the Land Code; a party representing a landlord in a straw-man arrangement should instead seek to resolve the situation through acquisition of the intermediary's contractual position or by voluntary agreement, not by termination.

The report shall be submitted to Kammarkollegiet no later than 1 June for the period January–April, no later than 1 October for the period May–August, and no later than 1 February for the period September–December.

Section 2 defines influence communication as contact with a political decision-maker or that person's staff with the aim of influencing the preparation or decision in a matter before the Riksdag or the Government, in order to promote a particular interest or outcome.

Core issue

The Riksdag has approved the establishment of a lobbying register, and the legal situation facing the advocacy sector is a registration and reporting obligation with the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Kammarkollegiet), entering into force on 1 July 2027. The Act (2026:1459) on Transparency in Communication Aimed at Influencing Political Decisions enters into force on 1 July 2027. The precise legal question is who falls within the notification obligation and what must be reported. The register will be limited to contacts with the Riksdag and the Government for the purpose of influencing the preparatory work or decision-making in a matter.

• Providing advice or support on assignment to someone engaging in such contact is also counted as influence communication.
• Section 3 specifies who is a political decision-maker: members of the Riksdag and ministers; staff include, among others, political secretaries, employees of the Riksdag Administration, State Secretaries, politically appointed advisers and special investigators together with their secretaries.

Legal assessment

The application rests on Act (2026:1459), under which Kammarkollegiet serves as both the registration authority and the supervisory authority. The parties' obligations can be summarised as follows:

• Anyone conducting influence communication must apply for registration under the Act's notification obligation (Section 4, with exceptions in Section 6).
• Reports must be submitted to Kammarkollegiet under Section 8: no later than 1 June for January–April, no later than 1 October for May–August, and no later than 1 February for September–December.
• Section 9 requires information on subject matters, the names of political decision-makers or ministry/unit/committee, the principal means of maintaining contact, and the approximate extent of the contacts.
• Clients must be stated where the communication was conducted on behalf of another party; those who have only provided advice or support are exempt from certain information requirements.
• Under Section 10, if the registered entity has not engaged in any influence communication during the period, this must nevertheless be stated in the report.
• Exemptions under Section 6 include, among others, routine contacts in administrative matters, participation in government-appointed working groups or inquiries where the documentation is public, contacts with intergovernmental organisations, and political parties with a mandate or party funding under Act (1972:625) or Chapter 4, Sections 29–30 of the Local Government Act (2017:725).

The source material contains no case law on the subject, and no sanction provisions appear in the cited sections. The limited scope of the register means that lobbying outside formal decision-making processes — such as between parties in connection with agreements like the Tidö Agreement or the January Agreement — is not covered, which was the core of Annika Hirvonen's criticism of the inquiry proposal.

Consequences

For tobacco lobbyists, prevention organisations, and other actors targeting members of the Riksdag and ministers, the Act means that every contact concerning a matter under preparation or decision-making must be documented and reported periodically. In practical terms:

• Companies and organisations must, from July 2027, register with Kammarkollegiet before continuing targeted influence communication.
• Political decision-makers and their staff will have their contacts publicly visible in the register, which increases transparency but may also affect who is willing to receive such communication.
• For the Green Party and others who sought a comprehensive register, the option remains to pursue an expansion politically, but under current law the limited register will apply.

Follow-up point: the next step is for Kammarkollegiet, before the entry into force on 1 July 2027, to prepare the registration procedure; the exact transitional rules and any provisions on the maintenance of the register do not appear in the source material and are therefore expected to be presented later.