In a post on LinkedIn, Australian funder Litigation Lending Services (LLS) announced the promotion of Emma Colantonio to the position of Chief Investment Officer. In the announcement, LLS said that Emma’s dedication and strategic insight have been instrumental to the success of the business.

Colantonio joined LLS in 2021 as an investment manager and served in that role for two years before being promoted to senior investment manager in May 2023. Prior to joining LLS in 2021, Colantonio had also spent five years at MinterEllison as a senior associate, as well as having served as a senior legal counsel at Commonwealth Bank. 

In her own post on LinkedIn, Colantonio provided the following comment: “Excited to step into the role as Chief Investment Officer at Litigation Lending Services Limited! A big thank you to the leadership team for their trust and support. Looking forward to driving our mission forward and exploring new opportunities in litigation funding.”As LFJ reported in August of this year, Colantonio was recently appointed to the board of The Association of Litigation Funders of Australia (AALF) as a non executive director, replacing LLS’ own Stephen Conrad in that position.

The enthusiasm for cryptocurrency over recent years has seen retail investors look to these digital assets as a route to impressive financial returns. However, this relatively nascent and unregulated asset class has also resulted in a significant amount of malpractice and criminal activity, leading to a surge in related legal cases that some funders are engaging with.

An article in TheBusinessDesk covers the news that IQuote, a Manchester-based litigation funder, has acquired over 1,000 claims related to cryptocurrency fraud. The cases that IQuote is funding are being brought by individuals who have been the victims of crypto scams or had their digital assets stolen. IQuote’s acquisition of these claims was achieved both through marketing efforts and organic traffic, with the individual value of the cases ranging from £10,000 to £10 million.

Craig Cornick, founder and chief executive, stated: “At IQuote, we are continually evolving our funding strategies to stay aligned with the dynamic and rapidly changing litigation landscape and are committed to helping victims receive justice. Our goal is to ensure that our financial solutions not only meet the current demands of the legal industry but also anticipate future trends, providing innovative and sustainable funding options for our clients.”

Class actions focusing on anti-competitive behaviour by big businesses continue to provide ample opportunities for litigation funders to support claimants in their pursuit of justice, with European jurisdictions benefitting from a strong regulatory and oversight structure that seeks to clamp down on corporations abusing their dominant market positions.

In a LinkedIn post from LitFIn, the Prague-based litigation funder provides an update on the ongoing class actions brought against online travel agency Booking.com over its alleged anti-competitive practices. The allegations relate to the company’s use of pricing parity clauses, which have harmed hotels by preventing them from offering lower prices on their own websites or other online travel platforms. 

The travel company is now facing lawsuits across a number of jurisdictions in the European Union, with ongoing investigations in Italy, Sweden and France, following in the footsteps of regulators in Spain and Czech Republic who have already issued fines. One class action, brought by German hotels seeking compensation, has already begun proceedings in the Rechtbank Amsterdam.

Juraj Siska, partner at LitFin, provided the following statement: “The recent decision by Spain’s Competition Authority to fine Booking.com €413.2 million is a significant step forward in the fight against anti-competitive practices. Booking.com’s actions have affected market players across the EU, not only in Spain. Now is the time to end these practices and ensure compensation for damages already incurred.”

Concluding the post, LitFin emphasised their active involvement to support claimants seeking compensation in the Booking.com class actions, and encouraged any potentially affected parties to contact them.

As we enter the final months of 2024, it is only natural for industry commentators and analysts to lay out their observations on the state of litigation finance, seeking to understand how third-party funding has evolved this year.

A column in Bloomberg Law, written by former lawyer turned writer David Lat, examines the current state of the litigation funding industry and examines the changing face of the market, from its growing successes to the evolution of issues it faces. The column draws upon Lat’s time at the LitFinCon event hosted in September of this year, featuring insights from industry leaders who spoke at the conference.

One of Lat’s primary observations is the transformation of litigation funding from a fringe activity in the legal sector, to a mainstream stable that has transformed the way claimants and law firms pursue disputes. Lat highlights this change in attitudes within law firms, quoting Casey Grabenstein of Saul Ewing, who noted that his firm was somewhat reluctant to embrace litigation funding”, whilst Mayer Brown’s Michael Lackey emphasized that third-party funding “was just anathema”, a decade ago. Nowadays, these attitudes have largely been reversed, with Lackey himself noting that in today’s legal landscape “virtually every large law firm that does litigation probably has a funded case somewhere.”

Speaking to one of the prominent topics discussed at LitFinCon, Lat explains that with the startling growth experienced by the litigation finance market, the issue of the ‘commoditization’ of funding continues to be raised. Across the speakers at the event, Lat highlights that the general view of funders and other parties is that the industry has moved towards maturation rather than commoditization, with a lack of standardization across funding arrangements being absent across the industry. Looking to the future of third-party funding, Lat says that industry leaders continue to take a cautiously optimistic view, and quotes Mani Walia of Siltstone Capital who said, “ours is a young industry, and we need to make sure that there are no bad apples.”

In the spirit of this cautious attitude towards ‘bad apples’ and the potential for issues to arise, Lat also addresses the ways in which opposition to and criticism of the funding industry has changed with its maturation. Lat describes this transformation as being a move away from issues of legality to issues of disclosure, highlighting the ongoing debates among lawmakers and the judiciary as to what level of mandatory disclosure should be required for funding arrangements.

The ongoing saga of the $16.1 billion award in the case brought by investors of the YPF oil and gas company, and funded by Burford Capital, has remained one of the most high profile instances of litigation funding in history. Whilst the Argentine government continues to appeal the award, the U.S. government has now formally offered its own opinion on one of the legal issues at stake in the dispute.

An article by Reuters covers the latest development in the Argentina YPF case, as the U.S. Department of Justice submitted a statement of interest arguing against the seizure of Argentina’s shares in the oil and gas company, as part of the enforcement of the $16 billion judgment. The letter, sent to U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska in Manhattan, appeared to disagree with Burford Capital’s position that there was a commercial activity exception to the Foreign Sovereign immunities Act, and that the law was not intended to disregard immunity for foreign sovereign property. This argument seemed to reflect the DOJ’s position that carving out such an exception to immunity would create a parallel risk for U.S. property in foreign jurisdictions.

In response to media reporting on this latest development, Burford Capital issued a statement that argued the DOJ’s letter only addressed “a narrow question of law in relation to the enforcement of judgements.” Furthermore, Burford argued that the filing “does not reflect DOJ’s taking any broader position on the overall case of the enforcement campaign.” The press release from Burford Capital can be read in full below:

“Burford Capital Limited, the leading global finance and asset management firm focused on law, has noted inaccurate media reporting and subsequent market reaction to an expected court filing last night by the U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ") in the Petersen and Eton Park matters. The filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York restates DOJ's position on a narrow question of law in relation to enforcement of judgments. The filing pertains to one motion filed in the Petersen and Eton Park matters as part of the overall, ongoing effort to enforce the judgment against the Argentine Republic. The filing does not reflect DOJ's taking any broader position on the overall case or the enforcement campaign; indeed, DOJ has previously taken the position that pursuing Argentina in the US courts for its breach of contract in this matter was appropriate, and DOJ has not made any filing at all on the pending appeal (and the time to do so has passed). In its filing, DOJ took the view that Argentina could not be required by a U.S. court to move property presently located in Argentina into the United States so it could there be attached for creditors under New York law, which is an unsettled legal issue. The DOJ view is not binding on the court and further briefing and proceedings will ensue. The Company will provide a further update on the Petersen and Eton Park matters during today's earnings call.”