The Swedish Supreme Court clarifies the conditions for registration of movable property purchases in cross-border transactions
Registration of a movable property purchase with the Swedish Enforcement Authority under the Swedish Movable Property Purchase Act is the means by which a buyer can obtain protection against the seller’s creditors under Swedish law where transfer of possession does not take place. A prerequisite for registration is that the purchase has been announced in a local newspaper in the locality where the seller is domiciled.
It has hitherto been unclear whether this means that the announcement must be published in a newspaper published in Sweden – a question which in practice has determined whether the registration procedure can be used at all when the seller is domiciled abroad. When an applicant applied for registration, the Swedish Enforcement Authority rejected the application, and the district court and the court of appeal held on appeal that registration required an announcement in a Swedish daily newspaper.
The Swedish Supreme Court has now clarified the legal position. In a decision of 16 June 2026, “The Virgin Islands Announcement” (Kungörelsen på Jungfruöarna), the Swedish Supreme Court establishes that registration under the Swedish Movable Property Purchase Act does not require that the purchase has been announced in a Swedish newspaper. An announcement may be published in a foreign local newspaper where the seller is domiciled abroad. According to the Swedish Supreme Court, there is neither support in the wording of the Act nor any reasons based on the purpose of the Act to impose a requirement for a Swedish newspaper, and such a requirement would in practice also make registration impossible in cross-border transactions. The Swedish Supreme Court also clarifies that it falls to the buyer to submit the investigation needed for the Swedish Enforcement Authority to assess whether the announcement in the foreign newspaper satisfies the requirements of the Act, and that the Swedish Enforcement Authority should be relatively generous in that assessment. In this case, the applicant had demonstrated that the announcement had been made correctly.
The ruling removes a significant obstacle for international transactions and confirms that the registration procedure under the Swedish Movable Property Purchase Act can be applied even where the seller is domiciled outside Sweden.
The applicant in the matter was represented by Mannheimer Swartling through André Andersson, Karin Slotte and Hedda Hedenskog.
