§ 3-57. The financial broker's duty of independence
Machine-translated from Norwegian. The Norwegian text is the one that applies. Read the original in Norwegian.Norsk English العربية Polski Українська
In brief
- The financial broker (finansmegler) must safeguard the interests of both parties and must not give cause to doubt its independence.
- The nature of the assignment, the position of the parties and the broker's own interests are key factors.
- The interests of group companies, employees and related parties count as the firm's own interests.
- This section does not apply to services covered by the Securities Trading Act (verdipapirhandelloven) and similar laws.
The text of the law (unofficial translation)
§ 3-57. Requirements for the independence of financial brokers, etc.
- other firms in the same group
- employed brokers and advisers, senior employees and elected officers in the firm
- related parties of the firm or of a person mentioned in letter a or b.
What does this mean?
This section sets requirements for financial brokers, that is, intermediaries in financial agreements (finansavtaler). A broker must safeguard the interests of both parties in a satisfactory manner and follow good brokerage practice. The broker must not act in a way that can create doubt that he or she is an independent intermediary. It is not enough to be independent in reality; it must not appear otherwise either.
In assessing independence, particular weight is given to what kind of assignment it is, what position the parties have, and what interests the broker has. The law further says that the interests of other firms in the same group count as the brokerage firm's own. The same applies to employed brokers and advisers, senior employees and elected officers in the firm, and persons closely related to them. An example using the roles in the law: the brokerage firm is part of the same group as one of the service providers (tjenesteytere). The group's interests then count as the broker's own interests in the assessment.
This section does not apply to services already covered by the Securities Trading Act (verdipapirhandelloven), the Securities Funds Act (verdipapirfondloven) or the Crowdfunding Act (folkefinansieringsloven). This follows from § 3-56, which has the relationship to other laws and definitions in its title and is listed as a section that refers here.
§ 3-58 adds specific duties in financial intermediation (finansoppdrag). There, a financial agent cannot receive remuneration from anyone other than the client. Other intermediary firms can only receive payment from the service provider if they have assessed a majority of the services available on the market. Independent advice cannot charge payment from anyone other than the client. The requirements in § 3-57 and § 3-58 complement each other, but they are not the same.