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Commercial Special Features

Member Spotlight: Nick Wood

By John Freund |

Nick Wood has 30+ years of private client advisory investment management and private equity experience, including implementation of tax planning strategies for a wide range of globally mobile clients. He has successfully built several specialist advisory and consulting businesses.

Nick’s first involvement in Litigation Finance in 2016; establishing, building, and successfully sourcing finance for a high-profile and high-value case against a global bank for fraudulent misrepresentation (see Upham & Others v HSBC UK Bank PLC). He was involved in establishing many similar projects since; acting for claimants, law firms, and investors with funding placed for over £1 billion of claims in 8 years.

Company Name and Description:  Audley Capital Ltd. In its short life, Audley has created and developed a rapidly growing advisory, consulting, and broking business, utilising and developing groundbreaking technology. Audley aims to disrupt historic litigation finance and legal processes, ensuring investment capital, legal expertise, and claimants benefit from Audley’s experience, expertise, legal tech, and AI offerings. Audley is focused on facilitating access to justice for those unable or too risk-averse to fund it themselves. Utilising our in-depth knowledge of litigation funding, technology, and our ever-growing network of key players we aim to make the process efficient, cost-effective, and swift, facilitating successful outcomes for our mutual clients. InvestorHub, LawfirmHub, and IntroducerHub are focused on specific service provision via our website. AudleyHub+ gives access to a wide (and rapidly growing) range of AI tools and consulting services.

Company Website: www.audleycapital.co.uk

Contact Information: nick@audleycap.com

Year Founded:  2023

Headquarters:  Notionally London, in practice Global.

Area of Focus:  Case funding, strategy, legal consulting, risk analysis, claims valuation and management consulting, secondary market valuation strategies, AI consulting, and bespoke program provision.

Member Quote: Litigation finance is the cornerstone of access to justice; however, the process can be cumbersome, unfocused, opaque, and too often frustrating. Through a combination of knowledge, experience, networking, and the implementation of technology Audley aims to reduce timescales, improve communication, and monitor performance; ultimately providing much-needed efficiencies and ensuring that money, legal expertise, and deal flow dynamically converge to create exceptional outcomes for all concerned. Our team is growing rapidly and we are actively seeking to build further our network of like-minded people and organisations in the investment, legal, and origination space.

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John Freund

John Freund

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Commercial Deals

iLA Law Firm Expands Services to Include Litigation Funding Agreements

By Harry Moran |

As the relationship between litigation funders and law firms continues to grow intertwined, we are not only seeing funders getting more involved in the ownership of law firms, but also specialist law firms looking to provide their own niche litigation funding services.

An article in Legal Futures covers the expansion of iLA into the business of litigation funding agreements, with the Poole-based law firm providing this new service offering to a range of clients from individuals to SMEs. iLA’s co-founder and chief finance officer, Luke Baldwin, explained that one aspect of the law firm’s litigation funding service includes work on matrimonial cases, providing funding of between £25,000 to £75,000 to individual clients. Other examples include funding for disputes brought by SMEs over ‘undisclosed commissions on energy contracts’, or individuals with claims relating to car finance agreements.

iLA was founded in March 2022 by Mr Baldwin and Anastasia Ttofis, with both co-founders having previously worked together on their Bournemouth-based brokerage business, Niche Specialist Finance. Since its launch, iLA has grown from servicing 13 clients in its first month to providing independent legal advice to between 600 and 700 clients. iLA’s growth has been bolstered by a series of partnerships with other solicitors, brokers and lenders, including a partnership with the specialist mortgage lender, Keystone Property Finance.

Announcements Commercial People Moves

ALFA Welcomes Mackay Chapman as Newest Associate Member

By Harry Moran |

In a post on LinkedIn, The Association of Litigation Funders of Australia (ALFA) announced that it is welcoming Mackay Chapman as its newest Associate Member. Mackay Chapman becomes the 12th Associate Member of ALFA, following the inclusion of Litica in April of this year.

Mackay Chapman is a boutique legal and advisory firm, specialising in high-stakes regulatory, financial services and insolvency disputes. The Melbourne-based law firm was founded in 2016 by Dan Mackay and Michael Chapman, who bring 25 years of experience in complex disputes to the business.More information about Mackay Chapman can be found on its website.

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Case Developments Commercial

Deminor Announces Settlement in Danish OW Bunker Case

By Harry Moran |

An announcement from Deminor Litigation Funding revealed that a settlement has been reached in the OW Bunker action in Demark, which Deminor funded litigation brought by a group of 20 institutional investors against the investment banks Carnegie and Morgan Stanley.

This is part of a wider group of actions originating from OW Bunker’s 2014 bankruptcy, which led to significant financial losses for both company creditors and shareholders who had invested in the company. These other cases were brought against several defendants, including OW Bunker and its former management and Board of Directors, Altor Fund II, and the aforementioned investment banks.

The settlement provides compensation for plaintiffs across the four legal actions, with a total value of approximately 645 million DKK, including legal costs. The settlement agreement requires the parties to ‘waive any further claims against each other relating to OW Bunker’. Deminor’s announcement makes clear that ‘none of the defendants have acknowledged any legal responsibility in the group of linked cases in connection with the settlement.’

Charles Demoulin, Chief Investment Officer of Deminor, said that “the settlement makes it possible for our clients to benefit from a reasonable compensation for their losses”, and that they were advising the client “to accept this solution which represents a better alternative to continuing the litigation with the resulting uncertainties.” Joeri Klein, General Counsel Netherlands and Co-head Investment Recovery of Deminor, said that the settlement had demonstrated that “in Denmark it has now proven to be possible to find a balanced solution to redress investor related claims.”