Fees at Lodline, for creditors, boards and foreign investors, are structured around the scope of the matter, not a single published rate. Work is priced as a fixed fee for a defined phase, a capped fee for bounded litigation, an hourly rate for open-ended advisory, or a success-linked component for recovery mandates.
Who this concerns
The question comes from three groups. Creditors chasing a Swedish counterparty want to know what a claim will cost to pursue before committing to enforcement. Boards facing an insolvency exposure or a governance dispute need a defined budget before they authorise external counsel. Foreign investors setting up or unwinding a Swedish structure ask because the invoicing convention, currency and VAT treatment differ from what they are used to at home.
None of these groups is buying a commodity service. A quote for a straightforward demand letter looks nothing like a quote for contested enforcement against a debtor with assets abroad, and the firm's practice areas set out which practice actually covers a given matter before pricing is discussed.
What the law says
Under Swedish law as it currently stands, fee arrangements between a client and a law firm are governed by ordinary contract law: the engagement letter sets the price, the scope and the billing cadence, and that document is what the fee turns on in practice. Swedish civil procedure applies a loser-pays principle in most contested proceedings, so part of what a client recovers, or is exposed to, sits outside the firm's own invoice entirely. Value-added tax applies to fees for professional services rendered in Sweden regardless of where the client is based, though the mechanics of charging it to a client outside Sweden depend on that client's own VAT status.
How it works in practice
Fixed fee for a defined phase
A fixed fee applies where the scope can be defined in advance: drafting a specific agreement, reviewing a defined set of contracts, or running a bounded regulatory filing. The client knows the total before work starts, and the scope written into the engagement letter is what protects both sides if the matter turns out to be bigger than it looked.
Capped fee for bounded litigation or enforcement
A capped fee sets an upper limit on an hourly-rate matter with a foreseeable shape, such as summary enforcement against a debtor with known assets in Sweden. The cap holds as long as the debtor does not contest the claim or move assets abroad; once either happens, the matter usually falls back to hourly billing for the contested phase.
Hourly rate for open-ended advisory
Open-ended advisory work, board guidance during an unfolding dispute, or litigation where the other side's conduct cannot be predicted, is billed hourly. This is the default for anything where the number of steps depends on decisions the counterparty makes, not on Lodline.
Success-linked component for recovery mandates
Recovery mandates for creditors can include a success-linked element on top of a reduced fixed or hourly base, tied to what is actually collected rather than to a judgment on paper. This aligns the fee with the outcome that matters to a creditor, but it depends on the debtor having identifiable assets to enforce against.
Retainer arrangements for boards
Boards that expect a steady flow of governance, compliance or contract questions often move to a retainer covering a set number of hours a month, with matters outside that scope billed separately. A retainer works when the volume of questions is predictable; it stops working the moment a single matter, such as a contested insolvency, dwarfs the retained hours.
Cross-border billing for foreign investors
Foreign investors are invoiced in the currency agreed in the engagement letter, and Swedish VAT treatment on cross-border services follows the client's own VAT registration rather than a fixed rule that can be quoted in isolation. Where a parent company outside Sweden is the contracting party, the engagement letter should name that entity explicitly, since a mismatch between the invoiced entity and the entity that instructed the work is a common source of delay at payment stage.
What actually drives the price
The variables that move a fee are the same across all three client groups: how much of the underlying documentation already exists, whether the counterparty is expected to contest anything, whether enforcement has to cross a border, and how quickly a decision is needed. None of these can be reduced to a single published rate, which is why fees are set by engagement letter rather than by rate card.
What fee models does Lodline offer for debt recovery and enforcement matters?
Debt recovery work is usually priced as a reduced fixed or hourly base combined with a success-linked element tied to what is actually recovered. Where the debtor does not contest the claim, a capped fee for the enforcement phase is common instead. The right model depends on whether assets have already been identified.
How does Lodline price advisory work for boards and foreign investors entering Sweden?
Board advisory work is typically billed hourly or through a monthly retainer, depending on how predictable the flow of questions is. Foreign investors setting up a Swedish structure for the first time usually start with a fixed fee for the initial filing and advisory phase, moving to hourly billing once the structure is operational.
Does Lodline charge differently for clients in logistics and transport?
The fee model does not change by sector; what changes is the shape of the underlying matter. Logistics and transport clients more often bring cross-border enforcement and multi-jurisdiction contract disputes, which shifts pricing toward the capped or success-linked models used for recovery work rather than a flat advisory fee.
The numbers
No fixed rate is quoted here because none holds across the range of matters Lodline handles. What can be said with confidence is what tends to move the number in one direction: a debtor who contests the claim, a counterparty structure spread across more than one jurisdiction, documentation that has to be reconstructed rather than reviewed, and a compressed timeline set by the client rather than by the matter itself. A quote that ignores these variables is not a fee estimate; it is a guess dressed up as one, and the engagement letter is where the real number is fixed.
Where it usually goes wrong
A fixed fee agreed for what looks like a defined phase breaks down when the counterparty raises a new defence partway through; the scope in the engagement letter should say what happens then, and often does not. A capped fee for enforcement stops protecting the client the moment the debtor moves assets abroad, because the matter has quietly become a cross-border enforcement question rather than a domestic one. Boards on a retainer sometimes assume the retainer covers a full-scale insolvency filing; it rarely does, and the gap only becomes visible once the invoice for the excess hours arrives. Foreign investors who assume Swedish pricing conventions mirror their home market are usually wrong about which stage of a matter carries the bulk of the cost, since Swedish procedure front-loads documentation review rather than court time.
What to do next
Reading this page is enough to work out which fee model fits a given matter in general terms; it is not enough to know what a specific matter will actually cost, because that depends on documents that have not yet been seen. The next step is a short assessment call, where the scope is defined well enough to attach a real fee structure to it rather than a general description. Start the assessment call.