Sören Öman is chairman (presiding judge) of the Swedish National Labour Court and holds a Master of Laws from Stockholm University (1985). He has extensive experience in arbitration, labour law, data protection and other fields of law. He regularly works as special investigator, or expert, for the Swedish government in various legal matters. For ten years he was the director, part-time, of a research institute (Stockholm Centre for Commercial Law) at Stockholm University and worked as a legal consultant. He has also worked several years as legal adviser in the Swedish Ministry of Justice and been senior legal adviser and head of staff unit at the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care.
Judge and arbitrator
Sören Öman is chairman (presiding judge) of the Swedish National Labour Court since 2015. Before that he worked part-time as vice-chairman in that court since 1996.
Sören Öman has since the beginning of the 1990’s been involved in over 90 arbitral proceedings in general commercial and labour law disputes. The ICC International Court of Arbitration, the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, the Chief Judge of the Swedish National Labour Court, a Swedish Court of Appeal, the Stockholm District Court, parties and co-arbitrators have appointed him as arbitrator in both international and domestic arbitral proceedings.
Sören Öman has also worked as a judge in the general courts in Sweden (Nacka District Court in Stockholm and the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm). He has been appointed associate judge by the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm and is eligible for appointment as a regular judge in the general courts as well.
Labour law
During 1992–1994 Sören Öman worked full-time as an expert to the Labour Law Committee of 1992 (a committee instituted by the Swedish government to review the then existing labour law legislation and propose any necessary amendments as well as propose how to implement EC labour law). In 2000, he was appointed special investigator by the Ministry of Justice and given the task of reviewing the issue of freedom of expression in working life and proposing new legislation. In 2004, the Ministry of Finance commissioned him to write a report on employer policy of the government. In 2007, he was appointed as special investigator by the government to propose legislation to introduce compulsory unemployment insurance. He has also been appointed by the government as special investigator in other labour law related matters. Sören Öman is a Member of the Swedish Labour Law Society.
Data protection and privacy
Sören Öman is also an expert in the field of data protection and privacy. He has worked in the field of data protection since 1996, acting as a legal adviser to the Swedish Minister of Justice 2000–2005 and representing Sweden in the European Union and the Council of Europe. He was, among other things, commissioned by the government (the Ministry of Justice) to act as chairman of a Council working party on data protection during the Swedish presidency of the European Union 2001. During 2002–2004 he was commissioned as special investigator by the government to review the Swedish Personal Data Act and propose amendments. In 2006, he was appointed special investigator to propose legislation for the processing of personal data for student aid. He has, as a special investigator for the government, reviewed the legislation on personal data processing in the health care and social services sectors.
During 2003–2006 Sören Öman was chairman of the Swedish Society for Computers and Law.
The digital cultural inheritance of Sweden
Sören Öman was in 2008 entrusted with the task of proposing legislation on compulsory legal deposit of digitally published materials. His proposals were accepted by the government and the parliament, and as a result the digital cultural inheritance of Sweden is preserved for eternity at the Royal Swedish National Library as of 2013.
Legal consultant
Sören Öman has been appointed as an expert to several government instituted committees reviewing legal issues or preparing legislation in the field of labour law or data protection. He has also written reports or otherwise given advice or legal opinions on various subjects to private organisations and companies as well as governmental offices and authorities, inter alia to the Nobel Foundation regarding the foundation’s statutes.
Lecturer
Sören Öman frequently gives lectures and presentations in Swedish and English on various legal subjects, inter alia at universities (560 speeches since 2004).
Writer
Sören Öman has published a large number of books, articles and reports in the field of labour law and in the field of data protection as well as other fields of law (in total 220 publications so far). He has published books on case law regarding employment protection, a legal commentary on the Swedish Employment Protection Act, a legal commentary on the Swedish act on whistleblower protection and co-written legal commentaries on the Swedish Personal Data Act and the Swedish Act on Labour Disputes and textbooks on legal informatics and collective labour law. He is recurrently published by multiple renowned legal publishers.