Legal Futures profiles Deminor's ESG insights in a new report. Deminor says that ESG legal investment has a high likelihood of becoming one of the United Kingdom's most investable lines of business for litigation financiers.  Deminor forecasts that litigation funders will experience active upcoming regulatory requirements that should be embraced. Furthermore, Legal Dive highlights that most class actions in the United Kingdom have a litigation financier funding the effort. Trends point to a continuation of favorable circumstances for funded ESG class actions in the UK.  Click here to learn more. 

The role of superannuation funds in litigation finance (specifically in funding class action claims) has been highlighted by industry insiders in Australia, who point to it as a benefit to the funds themselves and also an encouragement of good corporate governance. The recent example of HESTA, a super fund based in Sydney, taking part in a class action lawsuit against multiple financial service companies, has demonstrated both the appetite and the potential benefits of such engagements. In an article by Super Review, vice president and managing director of Financial Recovery Technologies, Sean Cookson, spoke about this more active approach to investment, and highlighted HESTA as a super fund that has been able to leverage its capital to apply pressure through this alternative avenue. Mr Cookson pointed to the fact that apart from the US, Australia represented one of the lowest risk countries for funds to join class action claims when compared to jurisdictions such as Germany and the UK. Mary Delahunty, the former head of impact at HESTA, went a step further and stated that it was incumbent upon super funds to recover losses through class actions where corporates have failed in their fiduciary duty to shareholders. However, both Cookson and Delahunty warned that in order for this to be effective, the Australian government will need to reverse course and place an emphasis on regulating corporate behaviour.

International law firm Brown Rudnick has advised alternative investment firm North Wall Capital on a £100m litigation funding partnership with PGMBM, a law firm focused on environmental, social and corporate governance cases. The investment will be used by PGMBM to address the growing demand from consumers and other victims of injustice to seek recourse against corporates. Fabian Chrobog, Founder and Chief Investment Officer of North Wall Capital said: “We are thrilled to announce this partnership with PGMBM as part of our ESG-focused legal assets strategy. We are incredibly grateful to Elena and the litigation funding team at Brown Rudnick for advising on this significant deal.” Elena Rey, Partner at Brown Rudnick who led the deal team said: “This deal is thought to be the largest investment in a UK claimant law firm to date, strengthening Brown Rudnick’s leadership as the go-to advisor for litigation funding deals. This was a complex structure, which included a framework for the type of cases that this investment can be used to fund. We are delighted to have advised North Wall on this significant component of their ESG strategy.” As well as Elena Rey, the Brown Rudnick deal team included Counsel Tristan Dollie and Associates Natalie Grundy and Reena Patel. Brown Rudnick is the go-to law firm for litigation funding deals, thanks to their deep understanding of the industry and experience in structuring innovative and complex deals. In April 2021, Brown Rudnick advised on the multimillion-dollar funding agreement for a legal claim against social media giant TikTok and its parent company ByteDance. In November 2020, Brown Rudnick launched the Litigation Funding Working Group, which now has over 90 members to develop model documents. In May 2022, Brown Rudnick hosted London’s first ever Litigation Funding Conference, attended by over 300 funders, lawyers, brokers, investors and other entities from the litigation funding eco-system. London-based North Wall Capital provides private capital to Western European special situations and manages several funds on behalf of global institutional investors. This investment brings the total invested by North Wall in PGMBM to £150million. In March 2021, North Wall Capital and PGMBM announced a £45m funding partnership. PGMBM is a partnership between British, American, Brazilian, and Dutch lawyers passionate about championing justice for the victims of wrongdoing by large corporations. This month, the firm secured a landmark, unanimous judgment from the Court of Appeal that allows over 200,000 victims of the Mariana Dam disaster, Brazil’s worst ever environmental disaster, to seek redress against the world's largest mining company, BHP, in the Courts of England and Wales. The firm is at the cutting edge of international consumer claims, including historic settlements on behalf of over 15,000 claimants in the Volkswagen NOx Emissions Group Litigation in May 2022 and 16,000 victims of the British Airways Data Breach in 2021. About Brown Rudnick LLP Brown Rudnick is an international law firm that serves clients around the world from offices in key financial centers across the United States and Europe. We combine ingenuity with experience to achieve great outcomes for our clients. We deliver partner-driven service; we incentivize our lawyers to collaborate in the client’s best interest; and we put excellence before scale, focusing on industry-driven, client-facing practices where we are recognized leaders.