Bastian Walaker Sundling
Managing Associate
Authorisation: Advokat
Specializing in litigation, arbitration, contracts, corporate, and real estate law, Bastian supports clients in industries such as IT, tech, real estate and other sectors. He also has extensive knowledge with ground lease agreements and has been involved in several high profiled supreme court cases.
Bastian is highly engaged in the Norwegian dispute resolution community and tech community, holding positions such as co-chair of Young Arbitration Practitioners Norway, board member of Young Litigators Norway, and member of Young in Tech. Within Wiersholm, he co-founded “Young in Litigation” and is responsible for knowledge management in the litigation group.
Awards, Work experience, Positions and Education
- Managing Associate, Wiersholm, 2024
- Senior Associate, Wiersholm, 2021
- Associate, Wiersholm, 2018
- 2022
- Master of Laws, University of Bergen, 2017
- Legal electives, Bond University, 2017
Selected projects
During his tenure as an in-house counsel at Cognite, Bastian specialized in contract and intellectual property law. He focused on software licensing, professional IT services, development agreements, intellectual property rights, complex NDA's, terms of service, AI, data protection, cloud computing, SLAs, outsourcing agreements, and corporate matters. He led the development of an automated in-house legal function and won the 2023 Cognite Hackathon as part of a team creating an internal legal AI chatbot.
Assistance to IBM in one of the longest and most significant IT contract disputes in Norwegian legal history against the Norwegian Public Roads. Administration ("NPRA"). The matter relates to the termination by NPRA of a significant agreement on the delivery of a new ICT solution for. toll road payments in Norway. Appeal court proceedings were conducted from January – May 2022. IBM was cleared of all SVV's claims and awarded NOK 380M worth of damages and work performed.
Sundling assisted the Homeowners' Association in the district court, court of appeal, and Supreme Court, and our client won the case on all points in three instances. The dispute has its origins in Rt-2007-1281 between the same parties and, this time, concerned questions of ground rent adjustment and violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The landowner has lodged a complaint against the state with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) after losing in the Supreme Court but also lost the case there: The ground rent for Øvre Ullern Terrace was not unconstitutionally low.
Assisting Pioner Labs, a technology company established by some of Norway's most renowned tech entrepreneurs, in a contract dispute with the Varner Group, one of Scandinavia’s most prominent fashion and clothing retailers. The purpose of the cooperation was to assist Varner in its digitalization journey by building a data-driven digital retail platform, new digital storefronts and a new digital firm culture.
Assisting one of Norway's largest online pharmacies, with counselling and contract negotiations with third parties in connection with the company's efforts to start and expand their online sale of medicines.
Assisting a global IT provider against a big services provider in a massive arbitration relating to claim for damages and or/revision of contract due to breaches of obligations under a long term services agreement for IT services.
Assisting Azets Norway Holding AS and other companies in the purchase of all or a majority share stakes in several Scandinavian IT companies.