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Acuity Law Signs £10m Litigation Funding Deal with Augusta

October 17, 2019

Acuity Law Signs £10m Litigation Funding Deal with Augusta

Leading Welsh commercial law firm Acuity Law has agreed a £10 million litigation funding facility with the UK’s largest litigation funder by volume, Augusta Ventures.

From its headquarters in Cardiff and offices in Swansea and London, Acuity provides legal advice to a portfolio of national and international business clients. The preferred arrangement offers Acuity’s clients competitive funding rates, with a time-efficient process in place to ensure effective decision making. Under the terms of the facility, Augusta will fund the full cost of pursuing a claim, including legal fees and expert witness costs and other agreed disbursements. This arrangement provides Acuity’s clients with ‘non-recourse’ funding, ensuring claimants are not called on to repay in the event their claim is unsuccessful. Augusta only recovers its investment from any sums received from defendants.

Hugh Hitchcock, Head of Litigation at Acuity, said: “Acuity has established its reputation as a leading UK litigation law firm. We’ve been delighted to serve an increasing number of clients over recent years, and this deal with Augusta further differentiates our offering to clients in Wales and across the UK. We are now able to help clients pursue meritorious cases that otherwise may not have proceeded due to financial constraints.”

Robert Hanna, Managing Director at Augusta, said: “We are delighted to be working with Wales’s leading litigation firm, Acuity Law, on providing funding for their clients’ disputes. Augusta has built a market-leading reputation for our team and processes, which enable access to justice. We are looking forward to offering these to Acuity’s clients to help them secure the funding they need to pursue meritorious claims.”

Acuity Law has recently been recognised in the Wales Legal Awards as both the Commercial Litigation Team of The Year and the overall Legal Team Of The Year. Acuity Law is a new model law company that is enjoying rapid and successful growth. With a team of over 100 lawyers and expanding, Acuity last year advised on over 100 UK-based transactions with an aggregate value of over £1.5 billion. Acuity Law specialises in high value and complex commercial disputes.

Augusta has recently announced a further $115m fundraising from a multi-billion-dollar US-based investment manager. This follows a £150m fundraising from a global investment fund in 2018, to finance business growth and investment in funding cases.

Augusta has also recently announced hirings into its senior team with the arrival of Proskauer Director Polly Bahl as Chief Operating Officer, FTI Consulting Managing Director Leor Franks as Chief Marketing Officer and Ardonagh Group’s Chief Counsel Frances Coats as General Counsel. These additions reflect Augusta’s ongoing growth and increasing client demand for dispute and litigation funding.

About Acuity:

  • Founded in 1999, Acuity Law is a commercial law firm headquartered in Cardiff and with offices in Swansea and London.
  • Acuity is an award-winning firm whose most recent accolades include Law Firm of the Year (Wales) at the Legal 500 Awards 2019 and Litigation Team and Legal Team of the Year at the Wales Dealmakers Awards 2019.
  • Acuity are specialists in providing corporate (M&A’, disposals, joint venture and partnering arrangements, management buy-outs and management buy-ins, private equity and venture capital investments and business transfers and restructuring), commercial, litigation, real estate, employment and tech advice.
  • Acuity’s corporate and commercial and TMT teams were ranked tier 1 in this year’s edition of the Legal 500.

About Augusta:

– Established in 2013, Augusta is the largest litigation and dispute funding institution in the UK by # case. Augusta’s scale enables us to make decisions in market-leading timeframes and fund cases of any size. – Augusta is organised into a series of specialist practice groups: Arbitration, Class Action, Competition, Consumer, Intellectual Property and Litigation, and sectors including Financial Services and Construction & Energy. – By the end of H12019, Augusta had funded 213 claims with a market-leading win ratio of over 80%. – Augusta has offices in London, Sydney, Melbourne and Toronto.

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Court of Appeal Shuts Down BHP’s Attempt to Overturn Mariana Liability Judgment

By John Freund |

The Court of Appeal of England and Wales today refused BHP’s application for permission to appeal the High Court’s landmark liability judgment in the Mariana disaster litigation.

The High Court found BHP responsible for the 2015 collapse of the Fundão tailings dam in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil, concluding that BHP is liable for the disaster under both the Brazilian Civil and Environmental law.

The Court of Appeal heard BHP’s application for permission to appeal the decision on 12 March after BHP was refused permission to appeal by the High Court in January.  BHP asked the court for permission to contest the findings that it was a polluter, and that it had knowledge of the risks associated with the dam before the collapse. The mining company also challenged the finding that all claimants brought their claims in time.

The Court of Appeal’s refusal marks a further victory for the hundreds of thousands of Brazilian victims who have spent over ten years pursuing justice, and a major setback for BHP. The High Court’s liability judgment remains in force, and BHP has exhausted the ordinary routes by which it could seek to overturn it.

In today’s ruling, the court concluded that BHP’s proposed grounds of appeal have no real prospect of success and there is no other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.  The decision means that the parties will proceed to the trial of Stage 2 of the proceedings, which will determine issues of causation, loss and damages. The trial evidence is to be heard from April 2027 to December 2027, with closing submissions listed for March 2028.

Lord Justice Fraser wrote in the decision: “I do not accept that any of the grounds relating to BHP’s liability for the dam collapse are reasonably arguable. I do not consider that there is any foundation for the different complaints that the trial judge failed to engage with BHP’s case."

Jonathan Wheeler, lead partner for the Mariana litigation at Pogust Goodhead, said: “The Court of Appeal has now joined the High Court in finding that BHP’s grounds of appeal have no real prospect of success - an emphatic and unambiguous outcome. BHP remains liable for the worst environmental disaster in Brazil’s history, and it will not be given another bite at the cherry.”

“Our clients have waited more than a decade for justice while BHP pursued every procedural avenue to avoid accountability; those avenues are now closed. We are focused on securing the compensation that hundreds of thousands of Brazilians have been owed for far too long.”

Announcements Commercial

Loopa Finance Wins at the Lexology European Awards 2026 in the Litigation / General Counsel Category

By John Freund |

Loopa Finance has been recognized as the winner in the Litigation – General Counsel Team category at the Lexology European Awards 2026, one of the leading recognitions in the international legal sector.

The award was received in London by Ignacio Delgado, General Counsel Europe at the firm, on behalf of Loopa Finance’s European team, composed of Ignacio Delgado (General Counsel Europe), Marina Gouveia (Investment Manager), Fernando Pérez Lozada (Senior Investment Manager), and Fernando Folgueiro (Managing Partner).

The Lexology European Awards recognize outstanding legal teams across the region through a methodology that combines independent research, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and thousands of nominations supported by clients and industry peers, as well as the annual research conducted by the Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal) and Client Choice.

The selection process is based on performance evaluations related to effective communication, commercial understanding, technical expertise, strategic management, and team strength, and is supported by a global community of more than 940,000 subscribers.

This recognition positions Loopa Finance’s European team among the leading practitioners in complex litigation and strategic legal management in Europe.

“This award reflects the strength of a team operating across two continents that understands litigation not only from a legal perspective, but also through financial analysis and risk management. It is the result of collective work and a rigorous, strategic approach to structuring complex disputes,” said Delgado during the ceremony.

More Than an Award: Validation of a Model

The award comes at a time of consolidation for the firm. Loopa Finance recently completed its rebranding process, evolving from Qanlex to Loopa Finance and reinforcing an identity aligned with its growth in continental Europe and its broader international positioning.

It also coincides with the closing of Fund III, raising €65 million to finance complex litigation and arbitration across Europe and Latin America, significantly expanding the firm’s investment capacity and supporting the continued growth of its platform in the region.

This milestone adds to the firm’s recent rankings, including its Band 1 classification by Chambers & Partners in Latin America and Europe, its recognition as “Highly Recommended” by Leaders League across multiple jurisdictions, and the inclusion of members of its team among the Thought Leaders in Third-Party Funding by the Lexology Index. Together, these results confirm the strength of Loopa Finance’s model and the consolidation of its team as a reference in the strategic financing of disputes at an international level.

About Loopa Finance

Loopa Finance is an investment fund specializing in the financing and monetization of litigation and arbitration across continental Europe and Latin America, supported by a technology-driven model and rigorous risk analysis. The firm provides capital to cover legal costs or monetize ongoing claims through non-recourse structures, where the recovery of the investment depends exclusively on the successful outcome of the case, assuming the financial risk of the dispute while fully aligning its interests with those of clients and law firms.

Announcements Commercial

Pravati Capital Partners with SEI to Bring Litigation Finance to Registered Investment Advisors

By John Freund |

One of the oldest litigation finance firms in the United States has announced a strategic partnership aimed at expanding mainstream investor access to the asset class.

As reported by Business Wire via Yahoo Finance, Scottsdale-based Pravati Capital has partnered with financial services firm SEI to provide registered investment advisors with structured access to litigation finance as an alternative investment option. The collaboration will leverage SEI's distribution platform to make litigation funding opportunities available within advisor portfolios.

The partnership reflects growing institutional interest in litigation finance as an alternative asset class. Historically, litigation funding has been difficult for mainstream financial advisors to access on behalf of their clients, with the market largely dominated by specialized funds and institutional investors. The Pravati-SEI arrangement seeks to bridge that gap by creating a more accessible pathway for advisors seeking diversification through non-correlated investments.

The announcement underscores a broader industry shift as litigation finance continues to move from a niche strategy toward greater acceptance within traditional wealth management channels. As the global litigation funding market grows — projected to reach over $25 billion in 2026 — partnerships like this one may signal a new phase of institutional adoption.