Language Policy and Corporate Law in Norway: Regulate or Motivate?

This paper explores the relationship between national language policies and corporate law in Norwegian business. By adopting a legal perspective on the national language policy of Norway as it has been stipulated by the Norwegian Ministry of Church and Culture (2008) and The Language Council of Norway (2005) the paper investigates how the 500 largest companies in Norway comply with the language requirement of the Norwegian Accounting Act for the financial year of 2015. The results show that 44.9 % of the companies presented their financial statements in one or more foreign language in addition to the Norwegian language version, 36.2 % of the companies presented their financial statements in Norwegian only, while 18.9 % of the companies had been granted dispensation from the Norwegian Directorate of Taxes to deviate from the language requirement of the Accounting Act and presented their financial statements in English only. The results of the study suggest that a more nuanced dispensation policy with increased focus on parallel language use would correspond better with the current legal framework.