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A principal at commercial litigation funder GLS Capital has argued that courts should resolve document discovery disputes using baseball arbitration, the winner-takes-all format used to settle professional baseball salary disputes, as a way of containing a cost that routinely strains case budgets.

As reported by Bloomberg Law, Mick Biehl explains that in baseball arbitration each side submits a proposed figure and the arbitrator selects one of them outright, without splitting the difference. Because the decision-maker picks the more reasonable of the two positions, both parties have an incentive to moderate their submissions rather than anchor at extremes.

Applied to discovery, the mechanism would work the same way. Rather than conventional motion practice, each side would submit its last written position on the disputed request or response, and the court would adopt one party's position in full instead of crafting a middle path.

Biehl, a former litigator, identifies three ways the format would reduce spend. Parties would draft narrower initial requests and avoid boilerplate objections, knowing aggressive positions are unlikely to be selected. Negotiations starting from more reasonable positions would be likelier to resolve without judicial involvement. And the all-or-nothing risk would deter marginal motions to compel.

The savings, on his account, come less from the hearings themselves than from what precedes them: the rounds of meet-and-confer conferences, emails, amended requests and discovery hearings that accumulate before a dispute reaches a judge.

Among the proposals in the UK government's overhaul of the opt-out collective actions regime is a change to when litigation funders actually get paid, a mechanic that has drawn less attention than the certification debate but bears directly on funder economics.

As reported by Legal Futures, the Department for Business and Trade's consultation would introduce a presumption that funders receive their return "at the point of a damages award being ordered or a settlement sum approved, without needing to wait for the outcome of distribution." Payment would follow the waterfall arrangements set out in the litigation funding agreement, with the Competition Appeal Tribunal retaining discretion where that would risk "an unjust outcome."

The consultation, "Swifter and Simpler Competition Redress, Regulatory Appeals, and Competition Enforcement," was published on 21 July 2026. It would also require the CAT to indicate the "reasonableness in relation to the return and order of payment at the point of certification," giving funders an earlier read on whether their commercial terms will survive.

Alongside that, the government proposes lifting the ban on damages-based agreements in opt-out proceedings. It points to Victoria, Australia, where contingency fees were introduced in 2020, as evidence that "funding rates have decreased and claimants have received superior returns."

The counterweight is a tougher certification test, under which the CAT would assess the "absolute suitability" of a claim for collective proceedings and give greater weight to case costs measured against the benefits likely to reach the class.

Lexolent chief executive Nick Rowles-Davies has argued that the campaign group driving the UK's litigation funding regulation debate is an American lobbying effort operating under a British name, and that its use of the Woodville Consultants collapse misrepresents what actually failed.

Writing in Legal Finance Expert, Rowles-Davies notes that after the Financial Conduct Authority warned on 20 August about unregulated loan notes and mini-bonds, citing Woodville, Fair Civil Justice responded that the funding market "cannot remain unregulated." He calls that "opportunism, not mere imprecision," pointing out that Woodville's investors bought unregulated debt rather than entering litigation funding agreements. The FCA warning concerned financial promotion, unregulated introducers, investor self-certification and hidden commissions — none of which, he argues, regulation of funders would address.

On provenance, he observes that Fair Civil Justice's principal 2024 policy paper, cited four times in the European Commission's mapping study on third-party funding, states on its own opening pages that it is "a thorough update of a paper initially published in 2016 by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform."

He also examines the campaign's structure. Fair Civil Justice Limited was incorporated on 19 May 2025 as a company limited by guarantee, registered at the London office of CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang. Its six directors include David Meyerson, ILR's Executive Director for International Initiatives, whose registered correspondence address is the US Chamber's Washington headquarters.

Rowles-Davies contrasts the disclosure the campaign seeks from funders with its own filleted first accounts, which disclose no income figure.

California lawmakers have sent Governor Gavin Newsom legislation that would prohibit litigation funders, private equity firms and other outside investors from influencing case strategy, settlement decisions or client intake at law firms they finance.

As reported by the Edinburg Post, Assembly Bill 2305, authored by Assemblymember Ash Kalra (D-San José) and sponsored by the Consumer Attorneys of California, cleared the legislature with bipartisan support as part of a two-bill package alongside AB 2039. Law firms would also be barred from using investor money to market for cases. A spokesperson for the governor's office said it does not comment on pending legislation.

According to an analysis by Holland & Knight, the bill defines "corporate investors" broadly to capture private equity groups, hedge funds, investment firms and non-attorney corporations whose primary purpose involves raising or managing capital, and applies regardless of whether the practice is organised as a partnership, professional corporation or LLC.

The prohibited conduct list is detailed. It covers determining which clients to represent, the scope of representation, the financial terms of representation, legal strategy, whether to file or dismiss claims, settlement decisions, the presentation of evidence, the conduct of discovery and appellate or procedural choices. Contractual provisions granting investors that control would be void.

Enforcement runs through several channels: State Bar discipline against attorneys, statutory damages of $10,000 per violation or three times actual consumer damages, whichever is greater, plus attorneys' fees and injunctive or declaratory relief.

India has no dedicated statutory or regulatory framework for third-party litigation funding, the government has confirmed in Parliament that it has no proposal to create one, and the market is being built in the meantime by a small group of funders operating case by case.

As reported by The Financial Express, the practice is not expressly prohibited when undertaken by non-lawyer third parties, and it has drawn judicial approval. The Supreme Court noted in a 2018 judgment that there appeared to be no restriction on non-lawyer funding of litigation, and in 2023 the Delhi High Court described such funding as important for access to justice while flagging the need for transparency and disclosure rules.

The institutional base remains thin. India has only one SEBI-registered alternative investment fund dedicated to legal and litigation finance, 5 Rivers Capital Fund I. Others operate as technology platforms, corporate aggregators or private networks without regulatory oversight.

Pratyush Miglani of ELF Partners told the publication that roughly 70% to 80% of the firm's current mandates are global and unconnected to India, with about 20% India-linked and mostly commercial disputes. He said the firm now receives at least two inquiries a week, rising quarter over quarter. Delhi-based LegalFund said it has committed or deployed capital across more than 100 matters, applying a cap of Rs 5 crore per case and generally targeting claims worth Rs 50 lakh or more in realistic recovery value.

Ila Kapoor of Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas argued that statutory recognition on the Singapore or Hong Kong model would settle which proceedings qualify, what must be disclosed, and who is fit to fund.

After-the-event insurers are being told to expect higher premiums, tighter limits and harder underwriting questions on group claims following the costs ruling against Prince Harry and his six co-claimants in their privacy case against Associated Newspapers Limited.

As reported by Insurance Business, ANL claimed £34.5 million in legal costs after winning at trial. Mr Justice Nicklin ordered that costs be assessed on the indemnity basis rather than the standard basis, removing the proportionality test, and awarded an interim payment of £9,544,355. He declined to set any ceiling on the total recoverable sum, even while describing ANL's bill as exceptionally high.

Nick McDonnell, a costs lawyer at Kain Knight, said the ruling could prompt ATE insurers to factor indemnity costs orders more heavily into their underwriting. Rocco Pirozzolo, managing director at Harbour Underwriting, argued the case should push pricing higher across the board, noting that insurers have no control over how litigation is conducted once cover is bound.

Reputation consultant Mark Borkowski said insurers will start asking much harder questions about how costs can escalate if claimants lose, and about how a claimant group is likely to appear to a judge.

The wider point for the funding market is that adverse costs cover has been priced on the assumption that standard-basis assessment will discipline a winning defendant's bill. Where indemnity-basis assessment becomes a live risk in high-profile group claims, the cost of the insurance layer that makes those claims fundable rises with it.

The Federal Court of Australia has approved a A$22.5 million settlement in a class action against two former Commonwealth Bank wealth management units, under which group members will receive A$5.12 million and the lawyers and litigation funder will take the balance.

As reported by Lawyerly, Justice Jonathan Beach approved the settlement in a proceeding the publication described as having been assessed as likely to fail had it gone to trial. Group members' share works out at roughly 23% of the gross settlement sum. Law360 reported that the funder's share of the fund is A$8.3 million.

The claim was run by Shine Lawyers and funded by Woodsford, and was brought on behalf of clients of Commonwealth Financial Planning and Financial Wisdom in connection with life insurance policies issued by CommInsure and AIA Australia. The allegation was that advisers failed to act in clients' best interests, including by not telling them that substantially similar or better cover was available elsewhere.

The approval places another data point in the running Australian debate over what proportion of a settlement fund should reach claimants. Where a case is settled at a discount because of litigation risk, the funder's commission and the solicitors' deferred fees and uplift are calculated against a gross sum that has already been written down, compressing the residual pool.

The outcome will be read closely by courts weighing common fund orders and funder commission in group proceedings, where the distribution split has become as contested as the merits.

Litigation Capital Management has secured another one-month extension of the covenant waiver on its debt facility with Northleaf Capital Partners, moving the expiry from 31 August to 30 September 2026.

As reported by Investegate, the AIM-listed funder told the market that the commercial terms are unchanged from the original waiver. Loan interest remains increased by 2.00% per annum for the duration of the waiver period, and there is no additional one-time waiver fee attached to this extension.

LCM said the extension reflects "Northleaf's ongoing support while LCM works towards a long-term resolution of its capital position." The company added that the Strategic Review first announced on 15 September 2025 "continues to progress," and that it will provide an update on that process in due course.

The announcement is the latest in a rolling series of short extensions that has run since December 2025, with each successive waiver granted for roughly a month at a time. The pattern has become the clearest public marker of where LCM stands with its lender: Northleaf has repeatedly declined to call the covenants, but has also declined to grant relief on anything longer than a monthly horizon.

The sequence has not been uneventful. Earlier extensions were accompanied by warnings of negative developments on case investments and expected material write-downs, and in July the company disclosed that permission to appeal in a competition claim had been rejected.

For a funder whose balance sheet depends on the timing of case resolutions, the repeated one-month cadence leaves the underlying question unresolved: whether the Strategic Review produces new capital, a sale, or a run-off.