Eva Margrét Ævarsdóttir and Guðrún Lilja Sigurðardóttir are new partners at LEX Law Offices. With Eva and Guðrún joining as partners, female partners are now in total seven and have never been more. LEX Law Offices consists of 60 people, thereof 19 partners.

“It is a great benefit for LEX to have Eva and Guðrún join the partner group. They are both leading in their practice areas, and those practice areas have been growing rapidly in parallel with the increasing participation of foreign parties in Icelandic business life, as well as the growing opportunities and requirements for companies in the field of sustainability. It is a strength for a firm like LEX, which has great breadth in the field of law, that the breadth is also reflected in the group of partners,” says Örn Gunnarsson, managing director of LEX.

Eva Margrét Ævarsdóttir is a licensed attorney before the district courts. She specializes in projects related to sustainability and ESG matters (environmental, social, governance) and leads LEX’s consultancy in that field.

Eva Margrét has provided advice on green and sustainable lending and a variety of sustainability financing, including green bonds. She has also worked on the formulation and preparation of sustainability reports and advice in general regarding non-financial disclosures and disclosures by parties in the financial market. Eva Margrét has also provided advice on sustainability strategy and the integration of sustainability perspectives with the policies and objectives of companies in connection with the implementation of the European Union’s rules on sustainability and climate issues.

Eva Margrét has an L.LM degree in European law from KU Leuven in Belgium, a law degree from the University of Iceland and has completed a PMP diploma from IESE Business School in Barcelona. She previously worked at LEX in the years 2006-2013 but returned to work at the law firm in 2021.

Guðrún Lilja Sigurðardóttir is a licensed attorney before the district courts. She mostly focuses on competition law, corporate law, tax law and contract law. She has mainly provided advice to large and small companies and has provided both national and foreign companies with extensive advice regarding their operations in Iceland. In addition, Guðrún Lilja has provided advice in the field of competition law concerning large transactions and investments in Iceland and has overseen the preparation of merger notices and communication with the competition authorities in some of the country’s larger merger cases in recent years. In addition, she litigates before the district courts and has presented landmark cases in the fields of tax- and competition law.

Guðrún Lilja has an ML degree in law from Reykjavík University. She started working at LEX in 2012.

Eva Margrét Ævarsdóttir and Hjalti Geir Erlendsson, attorneys at LEX recently published an article in the Icelandic business paper Viðskiptablaðið on the EU directive on corporate sustainability due diligence and why the EU and various countries, including Norway, France and Germany are adopting legislation on a corporate due diligence duty to protect human rights in a company’s own operations and value chain.

Erla S. Árnadóttir, partner at LEX and María Kristjánsdóttir, attorney at LEX and partner and Managing Director of GH Sigurgeirsson, IP boutique and subsidiary of LEX Law Offices are praised for their work in the field of trademark law in the 2023 edition of the World Trademark Review (WTR 1000). LEX is top ranked and considered an invaluable partner to its patrons thanks to its exceptionally broad IP and IT expertise and deep experience.

„LEX is an invaluable partner to its patrons thanks to its exceptionally broad IP and IT expertise and deep experience. Its wide-angle view of the world of intellectual innovation gives it an advantage when it comes to setting strategy, resolving complex problems and representing service users in negotiations and litigation. Notable recent developments for the group include the February 2022 promotion of María Kristjánsdóttir to partner of LEX’s IP subsidiary GH Sigurgeirsson, an Icelandic boutique with a rich history, which was acquired by LEX in September 2018. Registering trademarks, managing portfolios and handling IP-driven transactions are all things at which Kristjánsdóttir excels. She makes a superb squad with veteran leader Erla Árnadóttir, who has been at the cutting-edge of IP development for more than 35 years. Together they take care of the portfolio of Reykjavik Energy, whose trademark registration, watch, opposition, litigation and transactional needs they meet with perfect exactitude. They fulfil a similarly broad role for many others including Ísey Export, a wholly owned subsidiary of MS Iceland Dairies, Iceland’s largest dairy manufacturer; Coca-Cola European Partners Ísland, the Coca-Cola bottler in Iceland; Iceland Oil; Mjólkursamsalan, the country’s largest dairy producer; among many others.“

LEX Law Offices was SKEL and Skeljungur’s advisor on the purchase of Klettur – sala og þjónusta ehf.

Skeljungur, a subsidiary of SKEL investment company, officially completed the purchase of Klettur – sala og þjónusta ehf. today and Kristján Már Atlason took the position as CEO of the company. Concurrently SKEL investment company took over Klettagarður 8-10 ehf., the company that owns and operates the building that houses part of Klettur’s operations.

Skeljungur and Klettur signed a purchase agreement last October with reservations regarding the approval of the company’s main suppliers as well as the approval of the Icelandic Competition Authority. In mid-January, all parties agreed, and the buyer thereby waived all reservations.

See more

On the 2nd – 3rd of February „UTmessan“ will take place in Harpa Concert Hall. UTmessan is one of the largest IT events in Iceland and is both a conference and an exhibition.

LEX will have a booth on the first floor at the exhibition where our top lawyers in IP and technology will welcome visitors.

On Friday the 3rd of February at 11:00 – Benedikta Haraldsdóttir, attorney and associate at LEX will be a speaker at the conference where she will give a presentation under the title:  „Can illegal handling of personal data by technology companies be a competition violation?“

Personal data is a resource for many technology companies that rely on it for marketing, analytics and more. Developments in Europe, and especially in the case of Meta against the German competition authorities, suggest that the competition authorities will possibly be allowed to take personal protection considerations into account when assessing whether the conduct of companies violates competition law.

The talk deals with the aforementioned issues, taking into account the points of view expressed in the case of Meta against the German competition authorities, which has been pending at the European Court of Justice.

Lára Herborg Ólafsdóttir, attorney and partner at LEX Law Offices, recently published an article in the business section of the Icelandic newspaper Morgunblaðið, where she discusses the European Commission’s draft decision on the adequacy of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

Uncertainty prevailed following the ruling of the CJEU on July 16 2020, in case C-311/18 (Schrems II), which concerned the legality of Facebook’s sharing of personal data from servers in Ireland and to the United States. With the ruling of the CJEU, it became prohibited to share personal data to various entities and cloud service providers that are subject to US jurisdiction in one way or another, and relied on the provisions of the EU-US Privacy shield.

Garðar Víðir Gunnarsson, attorney and partner at LEX Law Offices, has taken a seat on the board of the Nordic Arbitration Centre together with Haraldur I. Birgissson. Eiríkur Elís Þorláksson is the new chairman of the board. Other board members are Halla Björgvinsdóttir and Marta Guðrún Blöndal.

See further on the Iceland Chamber of Commerce website

María Kristjánsdóttir, attorney at LEX Law Offices and Managing Director of GH Sigurgeirsson IP recently published an online article in Tölvumál – Skýrslutæknifélag Íslands‘s magazine where she reviews the main issues related to intellectual property rights and the metaverse. Intellectual property rights are often among the most valuable assets of companies, and it is as important to take measures to ensure its protection and prevent infringement by third parties in virtual reality as it is in the real world.

We at LEX are proud to be among the 2% of Icelandic companies that are recognized as Strongest in Iceland in 2022 and meet strict conditions of CreditInfo’s analysis of Outstanding Companies.

LEX Law Offices is among 2,3% of Icelandic companies that meet the strict conditions of the Icelandic business paper Viðskiptablaðið and the business information provider Keldan and is recognised as Excellent in Iceland 2022.