Personal data 

Surname: Wahlgren
First name: Mikael
Date of birth: 4 May, 1965
Nationality: Swedish
Address: Linton & Wahlgren AB, Tellusgatan 18, SE-224 57 Lund, Sweden
Mobile phone: +46 (0)709-33 72 20
Email: mikael.wahlgren@lintonwahlgren.se

Academic degree and qualification

University of Lund (Sweden), Master of Laws (L.L.M), 1985-1991,

with specialisation on:

  • Comparative Law (Anglo-Saxon Contract law v. Swedish Contract law).
  • European Union Law (Studied at the Legal faculty at the University of Copenhagen).

Employments

1988-1989; Paralegal at the Swedish International Development Authority, Stockholm (Sweden) legal department.
1991-1992; Law Clerk at the District Court of Jönköping (Sweden).
1992-1997; Legal Counsel at Skanska International Civil Engineering AB, Danderyd (Sweden), the head office of the Skanska Group’s international civil engineering business.
1994; Secondment as Contract Manager at Uri Civil Contractor AB (i.e. the joint venture between Skanska AB, NCC AB and ABB AB), Kashmir (India).
1994-1995; Legal Counsel at Skanska International Civil Engineering AB, New Delhi (India).
1997-2000; Legal Counsel at ABB Alstom Power N.V., Asea Brown Boveri Ltd and ABB Business Services Ltd (Baden, Switzerland), the head office of the Swiss part of the ABB Group’s business.
2000-2003; Senior Legal Counsel at Rolls-Royce Power Venture Ltd, London (England), responsible for handling the Rolls-Royce Group’s ownership and financing of its power plant projects.
2004-2006; Senior Legal Counsel at NCC Construction Sweden AB, Stockholm (Sweden), the head office of NCC Group’s Swedish construction business.
2006-2015; Vice President, Company Secretary & Group General Counsel at Alfa Laval Corporate AB, Lund (Sweden), the head office of the Alfa Laval Group.
2016-current; Owner & Senior Legal Adviser at Linton & Wahlgren AB, Lund (Sweden).

Professional memberships and assignments

Arbitration and litigation 

  • Member of the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA), organising worldwide engaged lawyers in the practice and theory of international arbitration. (http://www.arbitration-ch.org).
  • Member of the Swedish section of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), organising worldwide engaged lawyers in the practice and theory of international arbitration. (https://iccwbo.org).
  • Member of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), organising worldwide engaged lawyers in the practice and theory of international arbitration. (http://www.lcia.org).
  • Member of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Southern Sweden, organising engaged lawyers in the practice and theory of Swedish and international arbitration. (http://handelskammaren.com).
  • The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, being one of the four Inns of Court in the UK, over 8,000 qualified members, including Judges, Barristers (both practising and non-practising) and Pupils. (http://www.innertemple.org.uk/).
  • Member of the Arbitration Association in Southern Sweden, organising Arbitrators active in the South of Sweden;
  • Member of the Swedish Arbitration Association, organising worldwide engaged lawyers in the practice and theory of Swedish arbitration. (http://swedisharbitration.se/).
  • Independent member of Vinge’s Experts Panel, an expert panel focusing a method to facilitate better and faster settlements of disputes. (http://www.vinge.se/Om-Vinge/vinge-expert-panel).

Construction laws

  • Vice-Chairman and Co-Chairman of the International Bar Association’s subcommittee for Financing Structures, organising more than 80,000 individual lawyers and more than 190 bar associations and law societies spanning over 160 countries and providing assistance to the global legal community. (http://www.ibanet.org).
  • Member of the European International Contractor’s Workgroup for Financing issues, focusing on contractual and financial issues connected with international construction projects. (http://www.eic-federation.eu/).
  • Member of the Swedish Association for Consult and Engineering Law, organising Swedish lawyers, consultants and representatives of the Construction industry and focusing on legal issues related to the Swedish construction industry.
  • Legal advisor to the International Tunnelling Association, organising 73 Member Nations and 300 corporate or individual affiliate members and focusing on issues connected with International Tunnelling and Underground works. (www.ita-aites.org).

Professional associations and networks

  • Member of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise’s (Svenskt Näringsliv) Corporate Legal Reference Group, consisting of the General Counsels of the largest listed Swedish companies. The Group discusses, opines on and handles current corporate legal issues;
  • Member of the Association of Swedish Engineering Industries’ (Teknikföretagen) Legal Board, consisting of the General Counsels of the largest listed Swedish manufacturing companies. The Group discusses, opines on and handles current legal issues of interest to the industry.
  • Member of the Companies Lawyers Association (Bolagsjurist Föreningen), organising Swedish corporate lawyers. (http://www.bolagsjuristerna.com/).
  • Member of the Swedish International Law Association, organising lawyers interested in international law. (http://www.ilasweden.se/).

Public Speeches and external lecturing

  • Lecturing, for a number of years, at the Department of Business Law and the Faculty of Law at the Lund University “Agent and distribution agreements”,” Dispute resolution in practice” and competition and intellectual property right matters and how a lawyer should go about communicating with a party that do not have legal training.
  • Speaking at a number of Swedish and international conferences, e.g. IBC Euroforum in-house counsel conference in Stockholm (about “Corporate Governance”), IBA’s Annual Conference in Prague and Durban (about “Multiparty proceedings in engineering projects” and “Project Alliances: (Why) do they work? – A Developer’s view”), The Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm (about “NCC Partnering concept”) and King’s College in London (about “a developer’s view on FIDIC’s Standard forms and best practise in regard to standard forms”).

Summary

Having 25 years extensive experience and knowledge of, amongst others, managing arbitrations, disputes and acting as an arbitrator and mediator, as General Counsel for the Alfa Laval Group, in-house counsel, supporting a number of multinational Swedish and foreign listed companies (i.e. Skanska, ABB, Rolls-Royce and NCC) and in my current role as independent legal counsel, I consider myself to be suitable as an industrial specialist arbitrator and mediator.

I have, in my capacity as General Counsel, In-house Counsel and independent Senior legal counsel, acted as an independent arbitrator and mediator, been responsible for handling, managing and defending my employers’ position as plaintiffs or defendants in various disputes as well as supervising and appointing external counsels both in domestic and international arbitrations and alternative dispute resolutions. My industry knowhow includes, amongst others, the handling of legal and contractual disputes within the international manufacturing, infrastructure, energy and construction industry, hens my belief that I would be suitable as an Industrial specialist.

Litigation experience

Act as in-house counsel when my employers have acted as plaintiffs or defendants in various disputes and supervised the appointed external counsels both in domestic and international arbitrations and alternative dispute resolutions. Experience includes commercial and contractual disputes and high value liability claims.

Arbitration experience

Domestic arbitrations

Served as one of three arbitrators in an ad hoc proceeding in 2005 (regarding a Joint Venture related dispute), which was handled in accordance with the Swedish Arbitration Act and institutional proceedings under the rules of the Gothenburg Rules. The case was settled.

International arbitrations

Apart from that I was suggested as the chairman of a ICC arbitration in 2011 (regarding a construction contract issue) by White & Case in London (Philip Capper), but was not elected. I have only acted as the supervising General and In-house counsel in commercial and corporate arbitrations. I have thorough experience and knowledge in arbitration, includes ad-hoc proceedings and institutional proceedings under the rules of LCIA, ICC, SCC and UNCITRAL as well as of handling arbitration under the FIDIC conditions.

Mediation experience

Domestic mediation

Served as the mediator in a generation transfer related dispute between the father and son who owned 50/50 of a SME in 2017, which was handled in accordance with Swedish legislation and was assigned to me by KPMG. The mediation resulted in that a new Board of directors was appointed (with a majority of independent Directors and that one of the parties was bought out by the other party.

Dispute settlement

In addition to what is said before, my general experience of handling arbitrations, litigations and other legal disputes, consist, amongst others, of:

  • efficiently managing and supervising arbitrations, litigations and other legal disputes relating to, e.g. international contracts and general international commercial laws issues, especially concerning the construction, energy and manufacturing business.
  • providing legal and strategical advices as well as managing claims,g. the successfully preparation and negotiation of a 600 MSEK claim towards Indian Hydropower Authority regarding delay during the execution of the Uri Hydropower project in Kashmir, India. This claim was paid out in full to Skanska 10 years later.
  • successfully managing the defence of a multimillion Euro claim from a joint venture partner in Singapore. The arbitration awarded us no liability for the claimed damage.
  • successfully managing and providing strategic advice in regard to Alfa Laval’s asbestos claims (i.e. product liability claims) in the USA. Resulting in the avoidance of any payment of major damages and managing to fend of the most aggressive plaintiff lawyers.

Business experience

  • handling, decision making and strategy related to business and corporate legal matters;
  • handling decisions and strategies regarding legal matters when doing business in e.g. Asia, Africa, Russia, China and
  • successfully managing and deciding on the strategy connected with the buy-back of externally held shares and delisting of a listed entity in India.
  • working and living in India, Switzerland and England, which has resulted in a very good insight into local cultural opportunities and problems
  • representing my former employers in industry and trade organisations.

Languages besides Swedish

English; Excellent (My main working language during my entire career)

German; Good (6 years’ studies during my school period + 3 years daily exposure during the time I lived in Switzerland)