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A senior investment manager at Loopa Finance has argued that litigation finance regulation should safeguard transparency and independence without restricting pricing, access to capital or the industry's ability to innovate.

As reported by Litigation Finance Insider, Marina Gouveia, Senior Investment Manager at Loopa Finance, said in a commentary published on 4 October that standards-based oversight is preferable to prescriptive statutory rules. She identified transparency, independence, contractual clarity and the integrity of proceedings as the priorities.

Gouveia noted that the market spans single-case funding, portfolio financing, award monetisation and law firm or corporate structures, and that sophisticated corporate clients and individual consumers have very different needs. A uniform regime, she suggested, would fit neither well. She also warned that return caps could make some claims less commercially attractive to finance, particularly those needing large upfront costs or long proceedings, which could narrow access to justice.

She accepted that some regulatory goals are legitimate, including managing conflicts of interest, ensuring parties understand their agreements, verifying that funders have the resources to perform, and protecting claimants' control over strategy and settlement. Her preferred route is standards that evolve through courts, arbitral institutions, counsel and funders as new risks emerge, rather than legislation attempting to anticipate future products.

The piece names no specific jurisdictions or bills. It arrives as regulators in the UK, EU and several US states continue to debate disclosure and oversight rules, and it reflects the self-regulation approach funders such as Loopa have promoted through bodies including the European Litigation Funders Association.

Pogust Goodhead, trading as PGMBM, has said it is opposing an application to hold today's High Court hearing on who represents more than 400,000 claimants in the Mariana Dam litigation under seal.

According to a statement issued by PGMBM, lawyers acting for the Mariana Client Committee served an application on Monday asking the court to hold the hearing in private. A PGMBM spokesperson said the firm believes the move "flies in the face of access to justice" for the claimants affected by the disaster, and described transparency for clients as fundamental. PGMBM said it is urgently asking the judge to reject the application in the public interest.

The hearing is an expedited two-day session on 5 and 6 October to decide which firm should act for the claimants. As Legal Futures reported, the High Court earlier refused a request to stay the proceedings and directed that the representation dispute be determined at that hearing, rejecting calls for it to be held in private. The dispute pits PGMBM against Bailey Glasser International, which the Client Committee has sought to instruct in its place.

The statement did not say how the court has responded to the new application, and the application itself was supplied to media only as an attachment. PGMBM's account is one side of a contested matter, and the Client Committee's lawyers have not been quoted.

The fight over the case, a claim against BHP over the 2015 Fundão dam collapse, has drawn attention across the litigation funding market because control of a mass claim of this size determines how funders, lawyers and claimants are aligned ahead of the quantum trial listed for April 2027.

With the Solicitors Regulation Authority's consultation on third-party funding now closed, an after-the-event insurer has argued that the existing disbursement funding market will not satisfy the standards the regulator is contemplating.

As reported by Legal Futures, the SRA is considering new professional conduct standards that would require solicitors to maintain independence from funders and to tell clients that funders are not regulated by the SRA. The proposals would also require funding information to be given to clients in clear, plain language, covering redress options and how to claim on legal expenses insurance, and would require firms to document their assessments of third-party funding arrangements and report regularly to the SRA.

The 10-week consultation closed on 17 September. The piece, contributed by Allianz Legal Protection, argues that tighter regulation is likely as the SRA seeks to reduce the risk of further large-scale law firm failures.

On the funding mechanics, the article contends that current arrangements leave firms exposed. Drawdown facilities supported by ATE insurers typically cover only around 25% to 30% of a firm's total disbursement funding requirement, while partnerships with medical agencies generally offer deferment periods of two or three years. Because both are capped or time-limited, the article argues they rarely cover a firm's full disbursement funding need.

Allianz Legal Protection's proposed answer is to provide full disbursement funding as an insured benefit within the ATE policy itself, with payment made as disbursements are incurred rather than through a separate funding facility.

The piece is sponsored content from an insurer with a product to sell. Its underlying point is nonetheless relevant to the industry: if the SRA proceeds, consumer-claims firms will have to document and justify their funding arrangements to the regulator, and the structures they currently rely on will be assessed against that standard.

Over 800 current and former shareholders in Home REIT have brought claims in the High Court against the company, its directors and its former advisers, in one of the larger UK shareholder actions to be issued this year.

As reported by City AM, the claims are being run by Harcus Parker and name Home REIT and its directors alongside Alvarium Home REIT Advisors, the former investment adviser, and Alvarium Fund Managers, the former alternative investment fund manager, together with other parties connected to the company.

The shareholders allege that Home REIT misled investors about the security of its rental income, the financial strength of its tenants, the social impact it claimed to deliver, and the acquisition, use and valuation of its property portfolio. The claims are pleaded as statutory securities claims for misleading reports and accounts, together with deceit and negligent misrepresentation.

Harcus Parker partner Nate Barber said the claimants' case "is that what investors were told did not reflect the reality," adding that "what has happened since is extraordinary" and that shareholders "are entitled to understand how that happened." Home REIT said it "notes today's announcement" and would comment further "at an appropriate time."

Home REIT raised more than £850 million from investors between 2020 and 2023 to acquire accommodation for homeless people. Short-seller Viceroy Research raised concerns about the portfolio in late 2022, the Serious Fraud Office later opened an investigation, and the shares were suspended for roughly three years before resuming trading in April 2026.

No litigation funder is identified in connection with the claims. Opt-in shareholder actions of this scale typically require substantial book-building and adverse costs cover, making the financing structure behind the claim a point of interest as the proceedings advance.

Manolete Partners has completed another substantial insolvency claim, announcing the settlement of a large case for £3 million and confirming that board expectations for the year remain unchanged.

As reported by Investegate, the AIM-listed funder said in a regulatory announcement on 2 October that the case was successfully completed in late September 2026. The settlement forms part of the company's expected realised revenues for the current financial year, alongside realisations from the rest of its portfolio.

Manolete described itself in the announcement as the United Kingdom's leading insolvency claims financing company and attributed the outcome to its operating model, noting that it purchases and manages nearly all of its cases rather than passively funding them. The company credited its expertise in managing and progressing complex litigation and in asset preservation.

The announcement did not name the case, the insolvent estate or the defendants, and gave no guidance on when cash from the settlement will be received. No management commentary accompanied the release, which lists chief executive Mena Halton and chief financial officer Will Sawyer as contacts.

The disclosure follows a £3.4 million settlement in a separate large insolvency claim that Manolete reported in August, and continues a pattern of discrete case-level announcements that give the market visibility on realisations between formal reporting periods. Manolete's half-year results are due in November.

Manolete's model sits somewhat apart from the broader commercial litigation funding market. Rather than financing a claimant's own action in exchange for a share of proceeds, it typically acquires insolvency claims from administrators and liquidators outright and prosecutes them in its own name, which places realisation timing and case management risk directly on its own balance sheet.

A new analysis frames 2026 as the year state legislatures, rather than Congress, took the lead on third-party litigation funding, and advises in-house counsel to treat funding discovery as a standard part of litigation strategy rather than an exceptional step.

As reported by Best Lawyers, North Carolina became the first state to prohibit third-party litigation funding outright when Governor Josh Stein signed House Bill 315 on 22 June. The measure passed close to unanimously, is enforced by the state attorney general, and also gives private parties a right of action against violators.

Ohio has taken the regulatory rather than prohibitionist route. House Bill 105, signed on 7 July, takes effect on 6 October and introduces broad funding reforms addressing the role of funders in litigation strategy, discovery and settlement. The piece, written by Justin Smulison, reports that Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee are drafting comparable legislation with a particular focus on foreign-backed funding.

At the federal level, three vehicles remain in play. Senator Charles Grassley's Litigation Funding Transparency Act was introduced on 11 February as S. 3826. Representative Darrell Issa's Protecting TPLF From Abuse Act, H.R. 7015, was introduced on 12 January and remained at committee stage as of July. Separately, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and Lawyers for Civil Justice have proposed amending Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 to require disclosure of nonparty funding interests.

The practical guidance for general counsel is granular: build funding discovery into standard case strategy in disclosure-statute jurisdictions, search for UCC-1 financing statements filed by suspected funders, review deposition testimony about payments made to plaintiffs during litigation, and treat unusual discovery objections as a signal worth following.

Petersen Energia and Eton Park have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the $16.1 billion judgment against Argentina over the 2012 renationalisation of oil producer YPF, filing a petition for certiorari that keeps alive the single largest asset in commercial litigation finance.

As reported by Reuters, the petition was filed on 1 October by former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement. It presents two questions: whether a foreign sovereign can invoke its own domestic law to force claims into its own courts despite jurisdiction being established under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, and whether U.S. courts should defer to a sovereign's reading of its own law when that reading is advanced for the first time on appeal. The petition argues the Second Circuit's decision conflicts with Supreme Court precedent and has created a split among the federal appellate courts.

The Second Circuit overturned the award in March by a 2-1 majority, holding that the claimants' contract claims failed as a matter of Argentine law and belonged in Argentine courts. That ruling also vacated the June 2025 order requiring Argentina to turn over its YPF shares. The court denied a request for rehearing en banc in June.

Burford Capital, which funded the Petersen and Eton Park claims, said after the reversal that it would take a partial non-cash write-down of its YPF litigation assets and had flagged that the write-down could constrain its capacity to issue new debt and make new investments. Burford has also said it remains optimistic about an eventual positive outcome, pointing to the availability of international arbitration while acknowledging a meaningful delay in expected cash proceeds.

A spokesperson for Argentina's Treasury Solicitor's Office said the filing "constitutes a procedural step that had already been anticipated by the Argentine Republic and on which we are already working." The Supreme Court grants only a small share of petitions, and there is no fixed deadline for a decision on whether to hear the case.

The Supreme Court of Queensland has stayed an insider trading class action after ordering the plaintiff to post $630,000 in security for costs across seven defendants, finding there was reason to believe the company could not meet an adverse costs award.

As reported by Insurance Business Australia, the plaintiff, Blue Dog Group, never produced financial statements or management accounts despite repeated requests from the defendants about who was funding the case. The plaintiff's solicitor offered only general assurances that security would be provided "where it ought to do so."

Notably, no litigation funder is involved in the proceeding. That absence is central to the outcome: with no funder standing behind the claim, the defendants' costs exposure ran to the plaintiff company's own balance sheet, which was never disclosed. The court found there was reason to believe Blue Dog could not pay the defendants' costs — a proposition the plaintiff did not seriously contest.

The proceedings have been stayed and disclosure paused until security is posted.

The decision is a reminder that funding transparency cuts both ways. Defendants increasingly press for disclosure of funding arrangements as a route to security applications, and an unfunded corporate plaintiff that declines to open its books may find that silence treated as evidence of impecuniosity. For claimants without institutional backing, the practical effect is that a security order can stop a class action before the merits are reached.

More than 1,000 additional claimants in England and Wales have joined a group action against cryptocurrency exchange Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao, bringing the total to roughly 2,700 consumers globally. KP Law, which is running the claim, describes it as the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.

As reported by The Law Society Gazette, the announcement coincided with the Financial Conduct Authority opening its authorisation gateway for the UK's new crypto asset regulatory regime, which comes into force on 25 October 2027. Binance is expected to apply under that regime.

The claim was filed in the High Court in June, and claims issued now exceed £250 million. Claimants allege that Binance sold high-risk leveraged and derivative products — including leverage, futures and options — to UK users without FCA authorisation between late 2019 and early 2020. They contend those products are specified investments under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which may only be sold by authorised persons.

Binance has more than 300 million customers worldwide. Individual claimants are reported to have lost sums ranging from tens of thousands to millions of pounds.

KP Law partner Hannah Sharp noted that Binance Markets Limited was barred from carrying on regulated activity in the UK in 2021.

No litigation funder is identified in connection with the claim. Opt-in group actions of this scale nonetheless depend heavily on book-building and costs cover, making the financing arrangements behind the claim a point of interest as the case progresses.