Members and Secretariat
The Swedish Better Regulation Council consists of a Chair, a Deputy Chair, two members and four alternate members. There is a quorum of the Council when the Chair or Deputy Chair and two other members are present.
In the event of a tied vote, the Chair has the casting vote. Any dissenting view has to be stated in the Council’s opinions. The members of the Sedish Better Regulation Council have different backgrounds and special experience of the impact of regulations on enterprises. The Council is assisted by a Secretariat. The Secretariat consists of a Director, three case officers and one administrative officer. The main task of the Secretariat is to prepare the cases received by the Council and to present them to the Council for decision.
Stig von Bahr, Chairman
Stig von Bahr is a former Judge of the European Court of Justice (2000-2006) and Justice of the Supreme Administrative Court (1985-2000) and has subsequently been an adviser to the Swedish Tax Agency (2007–2008). He has also served at the Parliamentary Ombudsmen and in the Government Offices, where he was a Deputy Director-General at the Ministry of Finance. Stig von Bahr has taken part in a large number of government-appointed inquiries, mainly in the area of tax and accounting. For instance, he chaired the Committee on Inflation-adjusted Income Taxation, the Accounting Committee and the Inquiry on Taxation Rules for Close Companies. Stig von Bahr has also chaired the Swedish Accounting Standards Board and been a member of the governing boards of the National Courts Administration and the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. He has published a large number of articles, mainly on tax law and received in 2001 an honorary degree in law at Uppsala University.
Lennart Palm, Deputy Chairman
Lennart Palm is a former Managing Director of and adviser to the Board of Swedish Industry and Commerce for Better Regulation (2001-2006 and 2006-2008 respectively). He was previously responsible for the policy area of public sector/competition and better regulation at the Swedish Employers’ Confederation (1995–2001) and a political adviser with special responsibility for small enterprise matters at the Ministry of Industry (1991–1994). Lennart Palm has also worked at the Swedish Association of Free Enterprise, first as an industry policy officer (1974-1981) and then as Deputy Managing Director (1981-1990). He has also been a member of the Business and Industry Advisory Group to the OECD (BIAC) and its Governance Committee (1996–2008), of which he has been Vice Chairman (2003–2008). In addition, Lennart Palm was the BIAC representative on OECD’s two working parties on regulatory reform (1996–2008). He has also been the Vice Chairman of the small enterprise group of UNICE (now Business Europe) in Brussels and its representative on the European Commission Working Party Improving and Simplifying the Business Environment for SMEs (1998–2001).
Christina Ramberg, Member
Christina Ramberg is a Professor of Commercial Law at the School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University (1998) and now practises at the Vinge law practice (2007). She is often engaged as an arbitrator in Swedish and international arbitration. Christina Ramberg has written many articles and monographs in Swedish and English on general contract law, special contract law and electronic trading. She is also a member of the board of several Swedish enterprises and of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. Christina Ramberg has been a Visiting Professor at Tulane University, New Orleans, and Utrecht University in the Netherlands (1999 and 2002 respectively). She has been a co-opted judge at the Court of Appeal for Western Sweden and has represented Sweden in UN negotiations on electronic signatures. For almost ten years she participated in the work of the Coordinating Committee in the Study Group for a European Civil Code. Christina Ramberg has also been engaged as an expert by the European Commission, the Swedish Government, UNESCO, UNIDROIT and the ICC.
Leif Melin, Member
Leif Melin is Professor of Strategy and Organisation at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS). He mainly teaches on courses on strategic and organisational change and on entrepreneurship and strategic renewal. Since 2005 he has been the Director of the Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO). Leif Melin has been the Managing Director and Dean of JIBS (2000-2001) and Head of its Department of Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Management (1995–2000). Before coming to JIBS, Leif Melin was Professor of Corporate Organisation at Linköping University, where he also directed the Strategic Change Research Group (1987-1994). He has published research results in a large number of international academic journals and books. Leif Melin has also had long spells as a Visiting Professor at various Schools of Business – EM Lyon, ESSEC Paris, EDHEC Nice and St Gallen, Switzerland – as well as at York University, Toronto, and New York University.
Carl Gustav Fernlund, Alternate Member
Carl Gustav Fernlund has been a Justice of the Supreme Administrative Court since 2005. He previously served in the administrative courts and the Government Offices as, for example, a Deputy Director-General and Director-General at the Ministry of Finance, and was also an Economic Affairs Counsellor at the Permanent Representation of Sweden to the European Union. He has taken part in large number of government-appointed inquiries in the tax area and was, for instance, chair of the Tax Procedure Inquiry.
Claes Norberg, Alternate Member
Claes Norberg has been Professor of Commercial Law at Lund University since 1998. On 1 May 2009 he took up a position as an adviser in the Tax Division of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. His research has focused particularly on questions concerning the taxation and regulation of enterprises (company law, accounting law, audit law and capital market law) and he has written extensively in these areas. Claes Norberg is the Vice Chair of the Swedish Accounting Standards Board and a member of that Board’s Expert Panel for Financial Reporting. He has previously been a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Swedish National Audit Office and of the Supervisory Board of Public Accountants. He has also been an expert in a number of government-appointed inquiries on taxes and company law.
Kristina Ståhl, Alternate Member
Kristina Ståhl is a Justice of the Supreme Administrative Court. She was previously Professor of Fiscal Law at Uppsala University. She has published several books and a large number of articles in Swedish and international journals, mainly in the areas of Community tax law and company taxation. She has been a member of the Council for Advance Tax Rulings and the boards of organisations including the Nordic Tax Research Council and the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation.