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SPONSORED POST: Segue Cloud Services Multi-Funding Case Study

SPONSORED POST: Segue Cloud Services Multi-Funding Case Study

The Following sponsored post was contributed by Segue Cloud Services. The Challenge Multi Funding USA is a pre-settlement finance provider that serves attorneys and their plaintiffs. The company has been serving clients for nearly a decade, providing millions of dollars in financial support in jurisdictions like New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Vermont, Texas, California, Florida, and Washington. Through its pre-settlement funding services, plaintiffs can access much needed funds during the often lengthy settlement process as they wait for their cases to be resolved. When a case concludes in favor of the plaintiff, Multi Funding recoups its investment at a preferred rate of return. Managing the pre-settlement finance process can be labor-intensive, complex, and expensive. It involves an array of ongoing administrative tasks, from initial case intake, to underwriting and approvals, to managing contracts and case documents, to the regular tracking of case developments. And all key stakeholders need to be apprised of each occurrence as it unfolds. Like most providers, Multi Funding had relied on staff members to manage all the workflows and processes associated with pre-settlement funding. This meant manually inputting all case data into spreadsheets, completing forms, generating documents and reports, and notifying the parties involved whenever a milestone or change in dispensation occurred. And when a change occurs—as is usually the case—much of the entire process has to be repeated. As a result, Multi Funding’s team devoted countless hours to updating records and changing data, causing added expense and creating the potential for unnecessary errors in the process. “The amount of time and work required to usher a pre-settlement funding case from intake to settlement can be overwhelming. It can often take four days just to manually underwrite a funding application,” said Alex Reyes, customer service specialist, of Multi Funding. “Every time we have to manually change or update information, it can result in delays and increases the potential for human error, which can quickly steamroll into problems for our clients.” As Multi-Funding handled more funding requests, it recognized that it required a more efficient way to track, manage, and organize the painstaking pre-settlement process. The Solution After doing some research on potential technology providers, Multi Funding contacted Segue Cloud Solutions, an innovative software company that developed a technology platform specifically for the pre-settlement process. The solution to enables legal finance providers to enhance productivity, streamline daily workflows, reduce costs, and speed time-to-market. Multi Funding consulted with Jack Closs, project supervisor at Segue. “When we spoke with Multi Funding’s administrators, it was clear that our solution could deliver a range of efficiencies to expedite their existing processes, diminish their labor requirements, and drastically reduce the potential for human error,” said Closs. “Their spreadsheets were cumbersome and prohibitive, making it difficult for staff members to retrieve the case information they needed at any given moment. Our automation software would allow them to easily track and access everything from settlement milestones, to interim pay-off amounts, to correspondence with funding sources and changes in case dispensation, all from a single, intuitive interface.” Segue’s secure, robust platform automatically retrieves data to populate online forms and other documentation, generating material specific to each individual client according to established rules and permissions. The software automatically notifies staff, attorneys, paralegals, and clients of changes in status at various stages of a case. It organizes and centralizes all contact information, pay-off details, and case data, and generates documents such as contracts, letters, and reports with a click of a mouse. The solution is built on the industry-leading Salesforce CRM platform, making it easy to deploy in Multi Funding’s existing environment. In addition, the platform’s document generation capabilities are powered by Conga, a major provider of digital document management. The Outcome Multi Funding USA has processed thousands of loans through the platform. Through this solution, they’ve been able to increase productivity by some 15 percent, while mitigating costly mistakes. In addition, the solution has reduced the firm’s cost of operations, decreasing labor requirements and helping to speed more cases through their paces—without having to add personnel or extraneous infrastructure. And since Multi Funding accesses Segue’s technology through a cost-effective subscription with no per-transaction fees, return on investment is swift and considerable. “In a complicated environment like ours, Segue provides a much more efficient solution compared to manual administration. Underwriting processes that once took hours or days can now be turned over in about eight minutes,” confirmed Reyes. “Before we used Segue, we’d frequently tell clients we’d have a contract to them by the next week. Now we can produce all the documentation in less than an hour.” When asked about the value of the Segue pre-settlement funding solution, Multi Funding says it transcends traditional cost and organizational savings. “The ability to have an extensive range of automatically updated case information readily accessible throughout the pre-settlement process is a huge advantage,” concluded Reyes. “It creates an instant competitive edge for our firm by enabling us to provide fast and efficient service to our clients.”
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Pogust Goodhead Secures Landmark Win Against BHP in Brazil Dam Case

By John Freund |

In a major breakthrough for cross-border group litigation, Pogust Goodhead has secured a resounding victory in its long-running claim against mining giant BHP over the 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana, Brazil. The UK High Court has ruled BHP liable for the disaster, which killed 19 people and unleashed a wave of toxic sludge through the Rio Doce basin, displacing entire communities and leaving lasting environmental damage.

According to Non-Billable, the ruling confirms BHP’s liability under both Brazilian environmental law and the Brazilian Civil Code. In rejecting the company’s jurisdictional and limitation defenses, the court made clear that English law recognizes the right of over 600,000 Brazilian claimants to pursue redress in UK courts. The judgment underscores BHP’s operational and strategic control over the Samarco joint venture and found that the company was aware of critical dam defects more than a year before the collapse. The attempt to distance itself through the argument of being an indirect polluter was also dismissed.

This outcome is a critical milestone in one of the largest group actions ever brought in the UK. A trial on damages is now scheduled for October 2026, with case management proceedings set to resume in December.

The win comes amid internal turbulence at Pogust Goodhead, including recent leadership changes and reported tensions with its litigation finance backers, but the firm remains on course to press forward with what could be a multibillion-dollar compensation phase.

Incentive Payments Not Essential for Named Plaintiffs, Study Finds

By John Freund |

A new empirical study by Brian Fitzpatrick of Vanderbilt Law School challenges a widely held assumption in class action litigation: that incentive payments are necessary to recruit named plaintiffs. The research, published in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, analyzed federal class-action filings from January 2017 through May 2024, using data drawn from the legal-tech platform Lex Machina. It leveraged a natural experiment created by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s 2020 ruling that barred incentive payments in the 11th Circuit (Florida, Georgia, Alabama) while other circuits continued permitting them.

An article in Reuters states that according to the analysis, the volume of class-actions filed in the 11th Circuit did not meaningfully decline relative to other circuits after the ban on incentive payments. In other words, the absence of such payments did not appear to impair the ability of plaintiffs’ counsel to find willing named plaintiffs.

Fitzpatrick and his co-author, graduate student Colton Cronin, observed that although courts routinely approve modest incentive awards (averaging about $7,500 in non-securities class actions) to compensate the named plaintiff’s extra effort post-settlement, the data suggest that payments may not be a driving factor in recruitment.

Fitzpatrick emphasizes that this is not to say incentive payments have no role. He notes that there remains a moral argument for compensating named plaintiffs who shoulder additional burdens. These include depositions, discovery responses, trial participation, and public exposure. Yet the study’s finding is notable. Motivation for class-representation may be rooted more in altruism, reputation or justice-seeking than in straightforward financial gain.

For the legal-funding industry and class-action litigators, the findings are significant. They suggest that reliance on incentive payments to secure named plaintiffs may be less critical than previously assumed, potentially lowering a transactional cost input in structuring class settlements. On the other hand, third-party funders and litigation financiers should consider how the supply of willing named plaintiffs might remain stable even in jurisdictions restricting such payments.

Merricks Calls for Ban on Secret Arbitrations in Funded Claims

By John Freund |

Walter Merricks, the class representative behind the landmark Mastercard case, has publicly criticized the use of confidential arbitration clauses in litigation funding agreements tied to collective proceedings.

According to Legal Futures, Merricks spoke at an event where he argued that such clauses can leave class representatives exposed and unsupported, particularly when disputes arise with funders. He emphasized that disagreements between funders and class representatives should be heard in open proceedings before the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), not behind closed doors.

His comments come in the wake of the £200 million settlement in the Mastercard claim—significantly lower than the original £14 billion figure cited in early filings. During the settlement process, Merricks became the target of an arbitration initiated by his funder, Innsworth Capital. The arbitration named him personally, prompting Mastercard to offer an indemnity of up to £10 million to shield him from personal financial risk.

Merricks warned that the confidentiality of arbitration allows funders to exert undue pressure on class representatives, who often lack institutional backing or leverage. He called on the CAT to scrutinize and reject funding agreements that designate arbitration as the sole forum for dispute resolution. In his view, transparency and public accountability are vital in collective actions, especially when funders and claimants diverge on strategy or settlement terms.

His remarks highlight a growing debate in the legal funding industry over the proper governance of funder-representative relationships. If regulators move to curtail arbitration clauses, it could force funders to navigate public scrutiny and recalibrate their contractual protections in UK group litigation.