The DNV Group's Board Secretariat Head provides support and governance to the highest-level companies in the DNV group. The role involves making sure the board works well, organizing meetings, agendas and minutes, and helping communication between executive management and the BOD. Support three external boards, the DNV Council, and six working committees of the board and council.
I lead a team that gives legal support to all parts of the business for DNVs’ largest business area, Maritime. The maritime business area has an annual revenue of more than NOK 10Bn, works in approximately 100 countries and is the biggest and most prominent classification society in the world. Besides the classification and statutory business, DNV Maritime offers many services to offshore construction, emergency response, consulting and a large and evolving digital business, which includes the industry platform Veracity. Permanent member in various forums in Maritime such as Incident Task Force, Quality Task Force, IACS EG Law, leading an ad-hoc Mutual Recognition legal working group for EU RO’s, Maritime Risk forum and Maritime Interplay Forum.
I have been part of the core leadership team for a long time, working with the Group Legal Director to manage and run the global legal team across the group. My role involves helping with strategy, operations, and development in and for Group Legal. In this team we cover topics such as managing global law firm panels, strategic and operational planning, sorting and prioritizing work, knowledge management and training, and recently the restructuring of the admin support function into a legal operations team. Have also participated in various Group Crisis Response teams, notably as one member from Group Legal in the Covid Crisis team and as the responsible in Group Legal in the crisis coordination team responding to the Russia – Ukraine war.
Global role in Group Legal for dealing with DNVs risk exposure from big and complex claims and disputes worldwide. The role involves handling complex cross-border litigation, arbitration, mediation, setting up and maintaining governance and management reporting on claims. In charge of purchasing the global insurances for DNV Group, this covers PI, GL, D&O and Cyber-insurances. Member of DNV Group Risk Committee.
As the head of Group Legal for DNV GL in Region Middle East and Asia Pacific, I moved from Shanghai to Singapore and also took charge of Region Middle East and India; covering Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh as well as the APAC region. We gave legal advice and support for the five business areas of DNV at that time (Maritime, Oil &Gas, Energy, Digital Solutions and Business Assurance) and to Group Functions and Global Shared Services. Our work involved helping the divisional, regional and country management teams with different legal issues such as contracts, claims/litigation, governmental affairs/statutory requirements, restructuring, M&A, investments and post-merger integration projects as well as compliance, data protection, competition & antitrust laws, employment, procurement and other legal issues that came up in the daily operations of the DNV Group in the various jurisdictions. Moreover, I was part of several regional management teams in the region and had directorships in various companies within the DNV Group, especially I was a permanent member of the Maritime Region Greater China team from 2013-2018 and participated in Regional Management meetings on a regular basis.
Responsible for DNV GL Group Legal in the Asia Pacific region. The region at that time compromised around 80 office locations, approximately 3500 FTEs and 71 legal entities spread over China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Korea, Japan, Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand.
Responsible for coordinating the legal support to DNV Business Areas Maritime, Oil & Gas as well as all areas within Region Europe and Africa in 2011-2012. I was the responsible lawyer for DNV M&A activities in the period 2012-2013. This was a very active period in which I managed 15-20 M&A projects, including but not limited to acquisitions, divestures, mergers, demergers, restructuring and other strategic investments/divestments like placements and JVs. I have also been heavily involved in post M&A activities such as integration, claims and disputes. Set up DNVs revolving credit facility.
Responsible for coordinating the legal support to DNV Business Areas Maritime, Oil & Gas as well as all areas within Region Europe and Africa in 2011-2012. I was the responsible lawyer for DNV M&A activities in the period 2012-2013. This was a very active period in which I managed 15-20 M&A projects, including but not limited to acquisitions, divestures, mergers, demergers, restructuring and other strategic investments/divestments like placements and JVs. I have also been heavily involved in post M&A activities such as integration, claims and disputes. Set up DNVs revolving credit facility.
Kyllingstad Kleveland (now Selmer) was a boutique law firm that provided specialized legal expertise, in-depth industry knowledge, and specific experience in handling the complex and demanding processes that characterize the oil, offshore, shipping, aquaculture and fisheries industries. As a lawyer in the firm, I was working mainly with dispute resolution, contract law and public sector law. I was working towards clients in the maritime, offshore, Oil & Gas, aquaculture and shipping industries. I was involved in various strategic business development and sales activities in the firm, specifically developing a portfolio targeting the fisheries and aquaculture industry.
The district courts are the courts of first instance in the Norwegian judiciary system. They can rule in both criminal and civil cases. While being a judge I administered cases within all areas of law and passed judgement in 500+ cases. During this period, I was also trained as a mediator and acted as a court appointed mediator 10+ times, in various types of disputes with a 100% success rate.
Advised on the legal and regulatory framework related to fisheries and aquaculture industries, including licensing and quota regulations, ships, seafood safety, fish health and welfare, ports, harbors, infrastructures for sea transport and emergency preparedness for pollution incidents. I drafted legislation, as well as case handling, speech writing and other issues that arose.
Leadership & Management
Project Management & Legal Strategy
Business Development
Advocacy, Negotiation, Mediation and Dispute Resolution
M&A and Corporate Advice
Business Development, Cooperation agreements and Innovation Frameworks
Digital business models SaaS, PaaS, SW, development and API agreements
Maritime Law
Competition and Anti-Trust
Contracts
Regulatory Issues
Corporate Governance
IP Protection & Data Privacy
ABC and Sanctions Compliance, Export Control & Crisis Management
Corporate Affairs & Communication
2019: Legal 500: GC POWERLIST: SOUTHEAST ASIA
http://www.legal500.com/assets/pages/cc100/2019/southeast-asia-19.html
"[...] The changes he has initiated in the legal team in the region, as well as in the global team, have been many and varied. Solsvik explains that his focus has been on getting the legal team to be more ‘integrated and proactive towards clients in order to be perceived as a business partner rather than only a gatekeeper’. He has also pioneered the establishment and use of DNV GL’s global law firm panel. In doing so, the focus have been based around a robust reporting and data collection programme, which has led to an increase in the efficiency and more control and transparency around DNV GLs use of external law firms. Solsvik has also been extremely active in terms of project work and is seen as a significant contributor on both legal and commercial aspects in various transactions and has, on occasions, been appointed (or de facto acted) as the project manager for M&A projects. The most recent example of completed transactions where Solsvik contributed was the acquisition of shares in the blockchain company VeChain, where DNV GL took a minority ownership position. Solsvik says that; ‘For me this has been a great opportunity to get familiar with new technology and guide the company in an area with many new, different and immature legal challenges but where we see a significant opportunity to strengthen and modernise our current service offering, as well as the potential new services blockchain technology may open for’. In late 2018 Solsvik took a global role in DNV GL, as head of litigation, claims and insurance."
2018: In-House Community: Legal Team of the Year 2018
DNV GL, Group Legal ME & APAC was the winner in the small teams of the year category in APAC.
Honor issuer: In-House Community - http://www.inhousecommunity.com/
2018: Legal 500: GC POWERLIST: SOUTHEAST ASIA TEAMS
http://www.legal500.com/assets/pages/cc100/2018/southeast-asia-teams-18.html
"They manage to keep on top of all the disparate legal issues and manage them extremely efficiently. They also form an effective bridge between the business groups and the external legal advisers in dispute matters’.”
"Solsvik says they have adopted an ‘agile and dynamic model structured around parameters such as key client management and sharing workload amongst ourselves in regular meetings’. Adding, ‘I believe this gives the individual lawyers freedom and growth opportunities that are motivating and gives them challenges within all of DNV GLs business at the same time as the regular meetings has been key to developing a strong team spirit’."
"Another nominator glowingly said of the team that, ‘I have been working with the DNV GL in-house team for a while and found them to be extremely professional and shrewd judges of business opportunities for their colleagues. They are able to get the right balance between accurate legal advice and commerciality which serves their colleagues well and has led to a number of good outcomes on projects where we have worked together. They are bright, talented, focused and a pleasure to work with’."
2017: Legal 500: GC POWERLIST: SOUTHEAST ASIA
http://www.legal500.com/assets/pages/cc100/southeast-asia.html
"In his role as regional head of DNV GL’s group legal function in Asia Pacific, Dag Ove Solsvik helped the company achieve its desired legal and commercial outcomes in the face of rapid changes to the industries and markets it covers in the region. Utilising his deep knowledge and skills with regards to corporate law, intellectual property, tax, employment, and industrial and property issues, Solsvik was, in the words of a nominating lawyer, ‘able to provide the excellent leadership and guidance to his staff (and external counsel) needed in order to facilitate the project and achieve the required outcomes from the board’. The transaction spanned many jurisdictions and required DNV GL’s legal team to deal with local subsidiaries in many countries while having to ‘drill down in several aspects of the law’. Solsvik was praised for his provision of ‘clear and specific instructions to his team and external lawyers’, in addition to his delegation skills and communication skills with the board, ‘[balancing] the communication at both ends very well whilst also remaining integral to the project to ensure the success of the global restructure’. Following DNV’s acquisition of GL in 2013 and the subsequent merger of those companies and their group structure, Solsvik has completed key work in streamlining the legal structure and implementing the global merger in the local countries on a legal entity level. The team had to face challenges across several countries (Australia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam in particular) and managed to complete all work in just 6 months. This was largely down to good planning and deep understanding of the challenges in the various countries displayed by Solsvik and his team."
2016: Leadership talents of Norway 2015 (E24 Norske Ledertalenter)
Was included on Norwegian newspaper E24s annual publication of leadership talents under 35 years. The ranking is made together with executive search company, Boyden.
http://e24.no/spesial/ledertalentene/2015/
"Moved to China in 2013 to lead up the DNV GL legal department for Asia Pacific. The department consist of lawyers from both side of the merger between DNV and GL and from various countries. During the two years, he has been regional manager he has achieved very good results in a time that have been characterized by integration work, reorganizations, and challenging markets within all of DNV GLs areas of business. " [unofficial translation]