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Commercial People Moves

ClaimShare Joins The European Litigation Funders Association (ELFA)

By Harry Moran |

The European Litigation Funders Association (ELFA) is pleased to announce that Dutch collective claim manager and aggregator ClaimShare, has joined ELFA as an associate member. 

“ClaimShare‘s mission is to support people and SMEs that have suffered harm and seek redress from corporate wrongdoers. ClaimShare does this by bundling their claims and providing professional services to organizations that represent the claimants’ interests. Seeking the appropriate litigation funder is a crucial part of that service and for access to justice in general. For years, ClaimShare has advocated the necessity and added value of a dedicated litigation funding association in the EU. The establishment of ELFA is crucial to better inform clients, the legal industry and policy makers in the EU of the essential role litigation funding plays and its mechanics, as well as develop and foster best practices”, said Dirk Jan van den Broek, Managing Director of ClaimShare. 

Omni Bridgeway‘s Managing Director and ELFA Chairman, Wieger Wielinga, expressed his enthusiasm about ClaimShare joining as an associate member. He stated, “ELFA is delighted to have ClaimShare on board. With Dirk Jan and the broader ClaimShare team, we gain a wealth of experience accumulated through years of assisting claimants and interest organizations, specifically in the European Union in obtaining the redress they might not have otherwise achieved. Their perspective as a claims manager and aggregator will significantly contribute to our organization’s mission and benefit the entire industry.” 

About The European Litigation Funders Association: 

ELFA was founded by three leading litigation funders with a European footprint, and today includes almost all European litigation funders. ELFA, was established to serve as the European voice of the commercial litigation funding industry. With the objective of representing the industry’s interests before governmental bodies, international organizations and professional associations, ELFA also aims to act as a clearinghouse and reference for relevant information, research and data regarding the uses and applications of commercial legal finance within the European continent. ELFA aims to be inclusive for all professional litigation funders of larger or smaller size and to allow specific contributing market participants and academics as associate members. 

About ClaimShare: 

ClaimShare exists to support individuals and interest groups to set up and manage class actions and group actions advancing equitable access to justice. ClaimShare has successfully initiated several well-known impactful claims, helping its clients obtain legal redress regarding leaking silicone breast implants, wrongful electricity pricing and metals fraud.

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Harry Moran

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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 Maclay 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.”

Case Developments Commercial

Burford German Funding Sued Over Hausfeld Ownership Stake

By Harry Moran |

The ownership or funding of law firms by litigation funders continues to be a hot topic in the world of legal funding, with models such as alternative business structures (ABS) gaining momentum in places like Arizona. However, a complaint filed by a client in Delaware reveals a falling out due to the reverse funding model, where a law firm maintained an ownership stake in the funder.

Reporting by Bloomberg Law covers a new lawsuit brought against Burford German Funding (BGF), an affiliate of Burford Capital, by a client who claims that the funder failed to disclose the fact that BGF was partly owned by the same law firm it nominated to lead the client’s antitrust cases. Financialright Claims GMBH (FRC) alleges that when it negotiated the funding agreement with BGF for its antitrust litigation against the trucks cartel, it had no knowledge “that Hausfeld  was  also  a  part  owner  of  BGF  through  an  entity  called German Litigation Solutions LLC (“GLS”) or that one of the lead German partners at Hausfeld responsible for the firm’s representation of FRC had a personal stake.”

The complaint, filed by FRC in the Delaware Superior Court, explains that as Hausfeld is part-owner of BGF, and the funding agreement “provides for a share of FRC’s recoveries in the Trucks Litigations to flow to FRC’s lawyers”, this constitutes a contingency fee arrangement which are illegal under German law.  FRC had filed a lawsuit against Hausfeld in a German court and then applied for discovery from BGF, Burford and GLS in the Delaware District Court, which was followed by an assertion by these parties that the application for discovery “is subject to mandatory arbitration” under the terms of the funding agreement.

FRC argues that “as  a  direct  result  of  BGF’s  fraud  on  FRC,  FRC  did  agree  to  the Arbitration Agreement that—according to BGF—subsumes disputes between FRC and GLS.” However, FRC claims that it “would  never  have  agreed  to  an  arbitration  clause  requiring  it  to arbitrate claims against Hausfeld”, were it not for the concealment of Hausfeld’s ownership stake in BGF. FRC is therefore asking the Superior Court to declare that “BGF fraudulently induced  FRC  into  agreeing  to  the  Arbitration  Agreement”, and that the agreement should be declared both invalid and unenforceable.

Lisa Sharrow, spokesperson at Hausfeld LLP, provided the following statement:  “The US-based Hausfeld LLP and the UK-based Hausfeld & Co LLP hold indirect economic minority interests in Burford German Funding. These are separate legal entities from Hausfeld Rechtsanwälte LLP that do not practice law in Germany. Burford German Funding was of course developed and set up in a way that was fully compliant with all relevant regulations.”

David Helfenbein, spokesperson at Burford, also provided a response to Bloomberg via email: “There is a dispute in Germany between a client Burford has funded and its lawyers. Burford is not a party to that dispute and its outcome has no impact on us. This Delaware proceeding is a third-party discovery request to Burford for material for the German litigation, which Burford believes should be adjudicated in arbitration and not in the Delaware courts.”

The full complaint filed by FRC can be read here.

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