The following piece was contributed by Eric Schuller, President of the Alliance for Responsible Consumer Legal Funding (ARC).  The opponents of consumer legal funding often say that consumers do not need this product. That they have several other options which they can tap into, and as such, are trying to put up barriers through the legislative process in limiting consumers’ ability to have access to this vital piece of financial stability. What is interesting is that the barriers that are being put up are designed so that consumers will not have access to this product at a time when they need it most. There are pieces of legislation being introduced across the country that would fully ban the product. Other pieces of legislation would make it cost-prohibitive for companies to offer the product, thereby banning the product and not making it available to those who need it most. A recent CNBC.com report it found the following:

• 20% of American workers run out of money between checks
• 68% do not have money set aside for emergencies
• 51% have no emergency savings at all
• 45% financially stressed
• 83% of those with financial stress experience anxiety/56% depression
• 33% have been declined for credit in the past 12 months/47% of Black workers

And, thanks to inflation, the average family will need $5,200 more this year than last just to meet basic needs. This is on top of the fact that the average personal injury case takes between 1 to 3 years to settle. So I ask again, with the need for this product greater than ever, why are the opponents of the industry being so aggressive in wanting to limit this product? It is to do one thing: force consumers to accept low-ball settlements so they can increase their bottom line. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, Jr. once said, “Equal justice under law…it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists…it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.” Consumer legal funding gives consumers the ability to receive “Equal justice under law,” and get a fair and just settlement, as opposed to one that is forced upon them because of their financial circumstances.  

The following article was contributed by Nikki Stever and Madison Smith of Australia-based commercial law firm, Piper Alderman. In the third decision delivered in a shareholder class action in Australia,[1] Iluka Resources Limited (ASX: ILU), (Iluka) succeeded in its defence of a lawsuit[2] which failed to prove that the shareholders’ direct reliance on Iluka’s conduct caused their losses. However, the decision in favour of Iluka notably lacked any significant consideration of the second causation argument typically pleaded in shareholder class actions – market-based causation. Background of the matter Iluka is a large mining company and global supplier of mineral sand products. On 9 July 2012, Iluka revised its sales guidance for its products, resulting in a 25% drop in share price. The shareholders alleged that Iluka’s sales guidance leading up to its announcement:

1. was misleading or deceptive; and
2. breached their continuous disclosure obligations.

The lead applicant purported that reliance on the sales guidance impacted their decision to purchase shares in the company (direct reliance).  It is not clear to the authors if the lead applicant or shareholders pleaded that the market as a whole was impacted by the sales guidance (market-based causation). The Federal Court of Australia (FCA) rejected both claims on the basis that the representations alleged were not actually made, and were merely statements/guidance about Iluka’s expectations and were not guarantees or predictions/forecasts of future performance. The FCA also found that the lead applicant relied on various external stock reports rather than statements made by Iluka, causing the direct reliance case to fail. Direct reliance and market-based causation Direct reliance in a shareholder class action requires the claimant to prove they actually relied on the contravening conduct (i.e. statements) when deciding to acquire shares in the defendant company, and that the subsequent decrease in share price was directly related to the contravening conduct, resulting in loss to the shareholder. Market-based causation is based on establishing that the price that the defendant’s shares traded on the market was inflated by the contravening conduct, such that the claimant prima facie suffered loss by paying an increased price for the shares. The Court has accepted this proposition,[3] however, also suggested that it may still be necessary for individual shareholders to give evidence that, but for the contravention by an entity, they would not have purchased the shares (or not at the price paid) in order to establish loss.[4] Causation and loss in Iluka Because the Court found that no representations were made (and therefore they were not capable of being relied upon, either directly or by the market), the judgment was relatively quiet in relation to causation. While there is reference to the failed direct reliance case, in so far as it was held that the lead applicant did not rely on the sales guidance issued by Iluka when deciding to purchase the shares, unusually the judgment is completely silent on market-based causation. In previous cases where market-based causation has been alleged by the plaintiff, the but for test has been discussed by the FCA in the context of considering misleading or deceptive conduct claims.  For example, the alleged contraventions in Myer and Re HIH were assessed by considering whether the alleged loss would not have occurred but for the contraventions.[5] The High Court in Australia has offered an alternative approach in cases of proving factual causation of misleading and deceptive conduct generally - the ‘a factor’ test.[6] The a factor test is satisfied if the misleading or deceptive conduct was a factor in the occurrence of the plaintiff’s loss, or in other words materially contributed to the plaintiff’s loss. In Iluka, this test for market-based causation would be satisfied if the alleged contraventions materially contributed to the shareholders’ loss, rather than the more stringent test of whether the contraventions were necessary for the loss. The a factor test, if adopted, arguably offers a more appropriate test for market-based causation in cases of misleading or deceptive conduct. Firstly, it is more reliable and intuitive.[7] For example, the but for test requires counterfactual speculation as to how a market would have responded but for a particular event. This can be a difficult exercise for a plaintiff to speculate and quantify the loss. The a factor test shifts the requirements from necessity to contribution and is not as easily defeated by a claim that it was not the only factor relevant to the plaintiff’s loss. Secondly, the test also avoids duplicative causation, as market-based causation often involves multiple factors that could have affected share prices.[8] The court does not need to assess each separate factor and consider its relative relevance to the causal loss overall, as is required when assessing the causal conduct following the but for test. Finally, the a factor test promotes the deterrence of all misleading or deceptive conduct by providing a broad opportunity for the conduct to be considered misleading or deceptive, regardless of whether it was necessary for the loss.[9] Conclusion By failing to address market-based causation, the Iluka decision has created uncertainty around what causal test the court would be willing to accept for shareholders to succeed with a market-based causation claim. It is only a matter of time before there is a substantial decision on this point, however, until this occurs, the law on market-based causation remains unsettled. About the Authors Nikki Stever, Special Counsel  -- Nikki specialises in complex litigation and disputes, with an emphasis on class actions and disputes involving corporations, competition and consumer legislation and disputes concerning breaches of trust and fiduciary duties. Nikki frequently works with litigation funders and is experienced in the structuring and conduct of funded litigation, across all Australian jurisdictions. Madison Smith, Lawyer  -- Madison is a litigation and dispute resolution lawyer at Piper Alderman with a primary focus on corporate and commercial disputes. Madison is involved in a number of large, complex matters in jurisdictions across Australia. For queries or comments in relation to this article please contact Kat Gieras, Litigation Group Project Coordinator | T: +61 7 3220 7765 | E:  kgieras@piperalderman.com.au -- [1] Following Crowley v Worley Limited [2020] FCA 1522 and TPT Patrol Pty Ltd as trustee for Amies Superannuation Fund v Myer Holdings Ltd [2019] FCA 1747. [2] Bonham v Iluka Resources Ltd [2022] FCA 71. [3] In the matter of HIH Insurance Limited (In Liquidation) [2016] NSWSC 482; TPT Patrol Pty Ltd as trustee for Amies Superannuation Fund v Myer Holdings Ltd [2019] FCA 1747. [4] TPT Patrol Pty Ltd as trustee for Amies Superannuation Fund v Myer Holdings Ltd [2019] FCA 1747, [1671]. [5] In the matter of HIH Insurance Limited (In Liquidation) [2016] NSWSC 482; TPT Patrol Pty Ltd as trustee for Amies Superannuation Fund v Myer Holdings Ltd [2019] FCA 1747. [6] Henville v Walker [2001] HCA 52, [61] and [106]. [7] Henry Cooney, Factual causation in cases of market-based causation (2021) 27 Torts Law Journal 51. [8] Ibid. [9] Ibid.

The following piece is a contribution by Charles W. Price, CEO of Capital Now Funding, LLC.  The pre-settlement legal funding industry is often viewed in a negative manner by those outside of the industry, because settlement advances charge higher interest rates than traditional lending methods. The truth is, that without pre-settlement legal funding, those personally injured in accidents that were no fault of their own often do not have the financial means to properly care for themselves following a personal injury accident.  Therefore, pre-settlement legal funding plays a vital role by providing much-needed financial assistance for personal injury victims when they have no other options available to them. Added Expenses and Zero Income To fully understand the situation personal injury victims are going through, it is helpful to see things from their point of view. These victims have been injured due to another person’s negligence, to a degree in which they are unable to work and create income to support themselves and their families. In addition, they are now accumulating further expenses as a result of those injuries. The cost of physical therapy, follow-up doctor visits, and surgeries, can total thousands of dollars of additional costs for which the victim is now responsible. Even if the injured victim has health insurance, copays and deductibles are often more than they can afford in the event of an unexpected accident. Making matters worse, this costly ongoing care can be for an indefinite period of time, leaving injured victims with medical bills totaling more than they can afford.  As a result, injury victims are then faced with the choice of going into debt in order to receive proper healthcare or forgoing treatment altogether. Recent studies show that 69% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings, and 45% of Americans have $0 in savings. Roughly 61% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and do not have enough money to pay their bills if they cannot work for one week.  Injured victims seeking pre-settlement legal funding often face months of time away from their income. Data also shows that individuals with less savings statistically have the lowest credit scores in the nation, making options to borrow money from traditional methods such as a bank loan nearly impossible. Why Seek Pre-Settlement Legal Funding? Considering a typical personal injury victim’s situation and circumstances, pre-settlement legal funding is likely the only option available.  Also considering the additional benefits pre-settlement funding provides consumers, it is also a better option.  Most pre-settlement funding companies provide funding that is non-recourse, meaning that clients receiving funding only have to pay back the money advanced if a settlement is reached, and if there are sufficient funds remaining after paying off all other liens and attorney fees. The pre-settlement legal funding company takes on this risk as part of the funding agreement, which is advantageous to the personal injury victim. Selecting the Right Pre-Settlement Company Can Save Thousands of Dollars The most important aspect for an injured victim to consider when seeking pre-settlement funding is the wide variety of interest rates offered by different funding companies.  Many companies charge interest rates that compound or escalate at varying time intervals.  Depending on how long it takes the case to settle, the payoff can be considerably more than the cash advanced. This is why it is extremely important for the injured victims and their attorneys to select a pre-settlement funding company that results in the client receiving the most money possible when the case is settled. At Capital Now Funding, we offer pre-settlement funding for a one-time fixed fee with zero interest. Because our funding fees are fixed, our clients’ payoffs are fixed, no matter how long it takes their legal claim to settle. This keeps things simple and eliminates the possibility that a client’s payoff will increase. Choose Your Pre-Settlement Funding Company Wisely There are a lot of great pre-settlement funding companies to work with, but it is up to the client and his or her attorney to select the pre-settlement company that is in the client’s best interest. Because this choice can affect the amount of money the client walks away with upon settlement, we recommend thoroughly researching the chosen funding company and reading through as many reviews as possible before signing any agreements. Making a wise choice when partnering with a funding company will keep fees and interest low, and ultimately increase the amount of money a client receives at the end of a legal claim. About the Author Charles W. Price is Chief Executive Officer of Capital Now Funding, LLC, a nationwide provider of pre-settlement funding for personal injury cases. Capital Now Funding provides industry leading Fixed Fee funding with zero interest, which protects clients and preserves their ultimate settlement amount. For more information, you can contact Charles at cwprice@capitalnowfunding.com.

According to a recent Burford Capital survey, more than half of in-house lawyers say their company has awards and judgements that have remained uncollected—often to the tune of $20 million or more. That’s a staggering number of successful cases that go unfulfilled, from a collectability standpoint. The role of a judgment enforcement team is to advise clients and funders on the feasibility of collecting an award or judgement, and overcome a variety of obstacles that stymie or prevent a successful recovery. Asset tracing, collection of evidence (digital and documents), and intelligence gathering all fall under the purview of enforcement. Lawyers and researchers leading the team seek out actionable leads on debtors, then employ a strategy (or series of strategies) for collection, often across multiple jurisdictions. Earlier this month, Litigation Finance powerhouse Omni Bridgeway announced the launch of a US Judgement Enforcement arm. Omni already had the largest global judgement enforcement team with 50+ dedicated professionals, as well as a strong track record of success in global enforcement since 1986, spanning over 100 jurisdictions. The 2019 merger with IMF Bentham, which had maintained a US-presence under the banner of Bentham IMF, solidified Omni’s foothold in the US market. And this recent announcement further cemented the funder as an attractive option for litigation funding and enforcement in the United States. Burford Capital, another leader in third-party litigation funding, has maintained its own in-house judgement enforcement team since 2015. The recent high-profile Akhmedova divorce case generated a slew of headlines for Burford’s enforcement team, which combed jurisdictions as wide-ranging as London, Turkey and Dubai, in an effort to seize assets including the Luna: a superyacht valued at over $200 million (along with its Eurocopter and torpedo speedboat). From a litigation funder’s perspective, collectability is integral to the decision of whether to fund a claim. After all, there’s no ROI in simply winning a case.  Funders must therefore consider the collectability risk in every case they finance. Given this, we at Litigation Finance Journal wondered if Burford’s success and Omni Bridgeway’s recent expansion of its Judgement Enforcement division might foretell an industry trend. Will other funders start moving enforcement teams in-house? What exactly are the advantages of doing so, as opposed to working with third party enforcement firms? We did some investigating of our own to find out the answers. May the Enforcement Be with You Enforcement is a complex, laborious process, and comes on the heels of what is often a long, drawn-out legal proceeding. This enables defendants to deploy tactics simply meant to wear a plaintiff out. Many plaintiffs are keen to focus on growing their business, as opposed to the particular minutiae of asset tracing. Thus, debtors will go to great lengths to hide assets—sometimes legally, sometimes not so much—in the hopes a creditor isn’t up for arduous task of tracing those assets. The goal of judgement enforcement is to combine data-driven analysis with human experience and intelligence, to discover actionable insights with which to locate assets and ensure funds reach the deserving parties. This is often achieved by putting pressure on defendants, essentially by making it so cumbersome to continue to hide assets (also an expensive, complex process), that they simply opt to pay the judgment or award. Essentially, the job of an enforcement team is to make a defendant feel the way defendants often try to make plaintiffs feel—weary-eyed, and ready to throw in the towel. “Judgement enforcement can be an uphill battle,” explains one Omni Bridgeway rep. “Although we prefer to solve matters quickly, we are in it for the long run.” Since every case is bespoke, there is no playbook for how enforcement plays out. Typically, however, enforcement involves several key strategies:

• Researching the historical behavior of the defendant (What types of claims did the defendant have previously? Did those claims go paid or unpaid? How did the defendant respond to prior enforcement actions, if any?).
• Identifying a subset of jurisdictions where the defendant’s assets are located, and where enforcement measures can be used to collect those assets.
• Structuring a multi-district, often cross-border enforcement and collection strategy.
• Highlighting additional pressure points, outside of litigation, that can be leveraged to impel a defendant to make good on their debts.

Of course, with the proliferation of new technologies such as crypto and other blockchain-based innovations, the game is getting trickier, as more opaque avenues for shielding assets arise. Thus, the ability for an enforcement team to be nimble, flexible and adaptive is paramount. Much like a chess player anticipating her counter-party’s next move, a solid enforcement team must have both a plan of action in place, and an eagerness to break from that plan should the process lead in an unforeseen direction. Omni Bridgeway, for example, has assembled a robust team that can comfortably navigate a multitude of scenarios, comprising lawyers from diverse legal backgrounds, and researchers from a multitude of disciplines, including banking, science and economics. Bringing it In-House Third-party funders outsource an array of legal and financial services, including research, cultivating and preparing experts, Legal Tech development, and more. For some, especially smaller funders, it makes sense to outsource judgement enforcement as well. But for larger, more established funders and their clients —an in-house judgement enforcement arm offers numerous benefits:

• A judgement enforcement team can be as valuable at the beginning of a case as it can after the case’s conclusion. Input from enforcement professionals can help determine the defendant’s ability to pay, which can then be used as a factor in whether or not to fund a specific case. If the case gets funded, this same information can be used when estimating a budget with a clear eye of what steps need to be taken to enforce a judgement.
• An in-house enforcement team acts as a conversation partner for claimants and attorneys. Such teams are intimately familiar with the people and processes of the funders, case types, and workplace culture. This helps establish an internal knowledge base that can provide a seamless transition from one facet of the case to the next.
• Multidisciplinary collaboration. In-house teams have the benefit of being able to rely not just on in-house legal resources from many jurisdictions, but also a research team with additional abilities and language skills, whose members can advise continuously on assets and asset movements, and enable the enforcement team to act quickly on opportunities if and when an asset is identified.
• Litigation funding is an increasingly competitive business. When funders compete for clients, having a judgement enforcement division helps establish a funder’s commitment not just to the case, but to the final collection. Having an in-house enforcement team shows clients that the funder is able and willing to do the hard work necessary to trace assets and collect those unpaid judgments or awards.

One of the more overlooked benefits of an in-house enforcement team is its expansion of access to justice. While the enforcement team’s assessment of a defendant’s collectability risk can be used to eschew cases classified as high risk, it can also be leveraged in the opposite direction—to help funders finance cases that might otherwise appear too risky. In-house teams are intimately familiar with their organization’s risk appetite, and therefore can make recommendations to the investment committee based on the particulars of that specific appetite. The end result being that funders with in-house teams can finance cases that would otherwise go un-funded due to a high collectability risk. Omni Bridgeway has confirmed that it does have a specific appetite for enforcement or collectability risk. Having an in-house team with a deep understanding of that risk appetite benefits prospective clients, as the in-house relationship can help get their cases funded. Omni shared this summation of the benefits of having an in-house enforcement team: “Omni is a formidable ally to everyone involved, sharing in both the recovery and risk, and only getting paid its fee if real recoveries are made. That alignment of interests with clients means that once we step in, clients know we believe in their case and will only advise a strategy that directly increases the chances of recovery. For us, [enforcement] is our core expertise.” Looking Ahead  Two of the largest litigation funders have successfully created and maintained in-house judgement enforcement teams. While it’s hard to know what the future holds for this rapidly-evolving sector, it is possible this will set off a trend among large and medium-sized third-party funders, as competition for clients is fierce, and funders must do all they can to stay apace. This, in turn, is likely to aid not just the enforcement of awards—but case selection and how funds are deployed. As a rep from Omni points out, “The judgment enforcement capabilities do not just benefit clients with an existing judgment or award, they help us fund new ‘merits’ cases that might otherwise be considered too risky (because of a perceived collection risk), with the client knowing that the case is in safe hands from start to finish, should active enforcement be required.” We’re not in the business of prognosticating, so we won’t predict what the future holds. We will, however, point out that methodologies adopted by one funder can often become industry trends (portfolio funding, secondaries investment, and the push towards defense-side funding are all examples). It's been demonstrated that in-house judgement enforcement leads to increased client satisfaction, and—as third-party legal funding has always centered on—increased access to justice. After all, a favorable judgement has very little value if it remains uncollected. As such, a proliferation of in-house enforcement teams (should that indeed come to pass) will be a boon to clients, lawyers, and the funders who utilize them.