Tax cases in Sweden don’t normally get pulses racing, but the trials and tribulations of one of Nordic Capital’s subsidiaries through the Swedish administrative courts have been followed with keen interest by private equity houses.

At stake was how carried interest, a key way that private equity executives get paid, should be taxed. Once profits in a fund exceed certain levels, firms are entitled to a slice, called carried interest, which is distributed among their executives. Typically, it is around 20% of profits over a certain level, and can amount to hundreds of millions of pounds.