Ditlev-Simonsen was an officer of the Norwegian Royal Guards, and he later attended Stanford University getting a Master of Arts degree.

[1] In August 2007, the presence of a hitherto unknown Swiss bank account was revealed.

The revelation came after an acrimonious divorce involving his daughter, Cecilie Ditlev-Simonsen, the communications director of Norsk Hydro.

[2] The account, which contained NOK 1.5 million had been inherited by Ditlev-Simonsen after his wife died in 1990, and he eventually admitted to not having paid the Norwegian wealth tax on it.

[4] The incident was believed to be a cause of the Conservative's 4 percent drop in opinion polls, three weeks ahead of the election.