In the summer of 2022, Agro Food Park located in Skejby could open a 8,300 m2 newly built, sustainable multi-user building, which together with three other multi-user houses forms the framework for an innovative entrepreneurial environment for businesses in the agricultural and food industry.
The Danish Agriculture & Food Council was the developer of the new multi-user house “Park 26” and the Council also owns Agro Food Park. Headed by Holger Schöer and his team, Holst, provided advice during the whole process. Services included advice and drafting of the construction contract and lease agreements for the future users of the building.
It was important for the developer that the construction contract combined sustainability and budget security. Holst, contributed to thinking differently in the drafting of the construction contract, which was drawn up as a trust-based collaboration with built-in partnering elements – including the “open book” principle.
As expected, the selected form of agreement was quite the correct one. The construction was handed over on time. The budget was kept. And the building was granted a DGNB gold certificate, which was one of the criteria for success for the new building.
About the collaboration with Holger Schöer, Director of Real Estate Thomas Funch-Hansen says:
“As a client, it has been a pleasure to have Holger as a partner in a non-standard construction contract with the contractor. His counselling ensured a continuous focus on the greater joint benefits in the collaboration with the contractor. He was a strong legal support with great experience in the industry when at inevitable times, different opinions could challenge the cooperation. This ensured that at no time did the project escalate into any conflicts, but that both sides remained solution-oriented.”
As like many other social housing organisations in Denmark, Arbejdernes Byggeforening is involved in greater refurbishment projects in several of its departments – the so-called master plans which among others are to future-proof housing.
The process is both comprehensive and long-term, and it is therefore important to structure all parts of the process and to look ahead.
Prior to the final design of the master plans, Arbejdernes Byggeforening therefore chose to cooperate with two other social housing organisations about framework agreements for (i) turnkey consultancy and (ii) consultancy services for builders and developers.
The aim was to facilitate the subsequent agreement process, and based on this, Arbejdernes Byggeforening has entered into agreements on turnkey consultancy for several of the master plans. The execution of the master plans is now put up for tenders as trade-by-trade contracts and main contracts.
Headed by Svend Bjerregaard, Holst, has throughout the process advised Arbejdernes Byggeforening about the tenders for framework agreements, the conclusion of turnkey consultancy agreements and tenders for construction contracts, and also advised on general law matters on a continuous basis.
During 2016/2017, The Region of Southern Denmark invited bids for the second phase of a major refurbishment and expansion of the hospital situated in Aabenraa in the southern part of Denmark – a tender comprising an expansion of approximately 22,500 square meters, 8,000 square meters of refurbishment and a budget of DKK 450 million. Among others, a number of new facilities, hospital wards, warehouse and office facilities as well as access and parking facilities were to be established.
The expansion of the Aabenraa hospital was put up for tender as a main contract in accordance with the rules on negotiated procedures, and the Region approached Holst, for legal advice and guidance during the tender.
Headed by partner Svend Bjerregaard, Holst, contributed with legal advice in both the initial phase of the preparation and tendering of the construction contract, and with ongoing advice on contract law during the process.
The project was carried out under the Danish Super Hospital Programme, and the new wing was inaugurated in 2020; later in 2020, the new wing was also elected as the Danish healthcare building of the year.
Employees at Holst, teach and give presentations in many different contexts, and in connection with providing legal services to a client consisting of more than 50 houseowners, communication also formed a significant part of the counselling.
Stine Kalsmose Jakobsen, associate partner at Holst, advised the owners’ association about the registered covenant and the interpretation of the local development plan. As a part this work, she gave a presentation to the whole owners’ association with the object of creating a mutual foundation of knowledge and ensuring a united approach.
This was very worthwhile in the subsequent work, in which Stine and Holst, safeguarded the houseowners’ interests in relation to the relevant public authority.
When acquiring a business, it is of course vital to be sure that you are actually buying what you believe you are buying – and what the price therefore has been set according to.
This also applies to environmental issues, so when a client wanted to acquire a manufacturing company, associate partner at Holst, Stine Kalsmose Jakobsen, assisted with a full environmental due diligence.
It was in particular relevant as it was a business located on different sites, and several environmental requirements were to be observed. Hence, there was a need for clarifying whether operations could be continued with a new owner, as even few days with production shutdown can be costly.
The environmental due diligence comprised both a risk analysis of the production, an analysis of the present permit, and an identification of the options of keeping and re-issuing all necessary permits, also following a business transfer.
Holst, was in from the very beginning, when a landowner wanted to develop a new residential area in eastern Jutland.
Headed by partner Morten Fendinge Olsen, Holst, thus assisted in developing and optimising a structure on how a residential area could be realised, and all steps and options were assessed from a legal point of view: For instance, should separate houses or larger groups of houses be put up for sale?
The optimising of cooperation models, development opportunities and the sales process required both legal, strategic and commercial understanding. During the process, Holst, cooperated with many different players; and furthermore, work was carried out pertaining to planning and building regulations for municipalities, local development plan, sales agreements and lease agreements. During the entire process, focus has been on ensuring the most optimal realisation of the project, however, always taking into consideration the landowner’s position and values. This also applied to the considerations on which communal facilities should be available in the residential area.
A Danish bank had claimed an amount of tens of millions of Danish kroner from a Danish/German group of companies which had accrued a great debt due to trade in various financial instruments, including foreign currencies.
The group was widely diversified, and several persons and companies in both Denmark and Germany had furnished securities. Hence, associated partner of Holst, Henrik Christian Strand assisted on a num-ber of fronts.
He partly provided advice to the Danish bank; and he partly consolidated two existing lawsuits with two different attorneys into one lawsuit with him as attorney. He also assisted in investigating assets in North America and Asia – and attended negotiations with American lawyers. In addition, he handled the sale of mortgaged assets in Germany. And finally, he headed the comprehensive negotiations with involved guarantors and their lawyers.
The result was a reasonable settlement for all parties, including the bank which ultimately could settle with a limited loss on the entire banking arrangement.
Just like Denmark and several other countries, Germany has its own app for tracing and stopping COVID19, giving citizens the opportunity of being notified if they have been in close contact to someone infected with COVID19. This app forms part of Germany’s readiness during the pandemic as it increases the opportunities of interrupting infection chains and stopping the infection from spreading.
During the summer of 2020, the German Ministry of Health wanted to extend the coverage range of the app in order for it to be applied in other countries too – in particular in the border areas of Germany’s neighbouring countries, where many people cross the borders every day, e.g. for work reasons. And naturally, one of these countries was Denmark.
Associated partner, Henrik Christian Strand of Holst, was therefore approached by a law firm in Berlin – as they know each other through the international counselling network, IR Global – and together with the personal data experts at Holst, he provided advice to the German Ministry of Health about Danish rules on personal data.
Although much law on personal data is regulated at EU level, e.g. by means of the GDPR, a lot of nation-al legislation also had to be taken into account. For instance, rules on marketing and consumer protec-tion and what falls under legislation on medicinal products were to be considered. Another aspect were the Danish personal ID numbers which are comprised by the Danish Personal Data Act.
Today the German Corona-Warn-App is approved and being applied in Denmark.
The gas pipeline will connect Norwegian, Danish and Polish gas systems, and it will be established under a cooperation between the Danish and Polish authorities, i.e. Energinet and GAZ-SYSTEM. The object is, i.a., to ensure the supply of natural gas to Poland and to provide Danish customers using natural gas with cost savings, since the gas supply is made more stable and the project is sup-ported by the EU.
With partner Jakob B. Sørensen as head responsible, Holst, has provided advice to Energinet in connection with the construction works which are expected to amount to DKK 12-16 billion, of which Energinet must pay for about half.
Among others, the assistance from Holst, has comprised:
- General advice regarding project specific risks and the uncovering of such
- Perusal and commenting of tender documents, including insurance matters and the corre-lation between such and the contract terms
- Negotiations with tenderers
- Tender evaluation and the preparation of evaluation report and notification to tenderers
- Selecting risk profiles in connection with the various sub-projects
- Assistance pertaining to the completion of each individual sub-project.
The sub-projects have comprised several different types of deliveries ranging from quite simple component deliveries to deliveries of advanced sub-components under terms corresponding to the main contract. Several types of standard agreements were involved:
- Purchase of components (ORGALIME)
- Consultancy services agreements (ABR)
- Installation agreements FIDIC Yellow Book, 1. edition
- Installation agreements FIDIC Yellow Book, 2. edition
- Installation agreements FIDIC Red Book, 2. edition
- Installation agreements LOGIC standard offshore contracts
- Construction contracts (ABT 18)
Baltic Pipe will begin gas transmission services in October 2022.
With partners Svend Bjerregaard and Jakob B. Sørensen in charge, Holst, provided legal advice regarding a mutual, national tender on IT framework agreements, which was put out to tender by all of Denmark’s municipalities and regions.
The tender was for the delivery, operation and maintenance of both a municipal and regional platform for tele-medicine solutions (infrastructure), and also platform solutions for both citizens and staff when launching tele-medicine to citizens suffering from COPD (operation).
The tenders were completed as negotiated procedures according to the provisions of the Danish Public Procurement Act, and as legal adviser, Holst has provided advice on:
- Initial advice on tender strategy and contracts
- QA and preparation of tender documents, including tender conditions, framework agreements and IT contracts, including appendices
- Assistance in connection with Q&A
- Advice on the scope of negotiation
- Assessment of compliance of tender conditions
- QA of evaluation reports
- Contract clarification.
Upon completion of the tender, Holst, also assisted in drafting a cooperation agreement in consequence of several public authorities mutually wanting to draw on the framework agreements.