A new annual study of large jury awards has recorded the steepest year of nuclear verdict activity since 2009, and it places the erosion of tort reform — including rules governing third-party litigation funding — among the forces driving the increase.

As reported by Insurance Journal, the latest edition of Marathon Strategies' *Corporate Verdicts Go Thermonuclear* report counted nearly 200 verdicts of $10 million or more against corporate defendants in 2025, a 40.7% rise over 2024 and the highest total in sixteen years. Those awards totalled $25.6 billion. Forty of them cleared $100 million, the threshold Marathon uses for a "thermonuclear" verdict, and four exceeded $1 billion.

The spread across the economy widened as well. The report identified nuclear verdicts in 68 industries, up from 55 the previous year and 48 the year before that. Product liability accounted for 29 verdicts worth roughly $12 billion, while the insurance sector recorded five verdicts totalling $390 million. Texas, California, Florida and Maryland saw the heaviest activity.

Marathon attributes the trend to a combination of factors, stating that its research "identified corporate mistrust, social pessimism, erosion of tort reform, and public desensitization to large numbers as among the most important."

The reference to tort reform is notable given the pace of state-level legislative activity. Eight states — Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma and South Carolina — enacted tort reform measures in 2025, and those packages included both damages caps and expanded disclosure obligations for third-party litigation funders.

The findings are likely to be cited on both sides of the funding debate, with defence-side advocates pointing to verdict growth as evidence that disclosure rules are needed, and funders noting that the report identifies broader social and economic drivers rather than isolating litigation finance as the cause.

The seven celebrity claimants in the failed privacy action against the Daily Mail have been ordered to pay costs on the indemnity basis and to make a payment on account of £9.54m by 28 August, crystallising a gap between their after-the-event insurance cover and the publisher's claimed costs.

As reported by the Law Society Gazette, Mr Justice Nicklin found that the case went "well outside the norm" and that its "conduct was unreasonable to a high degree." The judge described the action as "litigation conceived and pleaded on an unjustifiably wide canvas," which was "speculative at origin and depended substantially on inference," with serious allegations maintained over a prolonged period on an inadequate evidential foundation.

The claims of unlawful information-gathering, brought by claimants including the Duke of Sussex, Baroness Lawrence and Sir Elton John, were dismissed last month following an 11-week trial. Associated Newspapers had exceeded its approved budget by more than £18.6m, with total costs amounting to what claimant lawyers called an "eye-watering" £34,481,622.54. The claimants hold legal expenses insurance covering £16.2m.

Nicklin J declined to impose a cap on recoverable costs, though he described the publisher's costs as "striking." The payment on account was set at £9,544,355, close to the £9,950,624.37 sought by Associated, which represented 65% of incurred pre-budgeted costs and 90% of budgeted costs.

The order converts a previously theoretical insurance shortfall into an immediate obligation, and stands as a reminder of how far ATE limits can fall short of defendants' actual costs in heavily contested, long-running litigation.

Hundreds of struck-out rugby head injury claims have been granted relief from sanctions in principle after the players switched solicitors, in a ruling that also records the appointment of independent counsel to advise the claimants on their position relative to their new law firm and their litigation funder, which sit in the same corporate group.

As reported by Legal Futures, Senior Master Cook allowed the claims to proceed despite non-compliance with unless orders on disclosure of medical records, taking "comfort" from the change of solicitor. The litigation involves around 1,000 claimants across rugby union and rugby league who allege serious head injuries from collision forces in matchplay and training, and that the governing bodies did not do enough to protect them. Between the two groups, 530 claimants stood struck out.

The players moved from Rylands Garth, described by the judge as "a relatively new firm with one qualified solicitor," to class action specialists KP Law, with Leigh Day assisting. Master Cook said that had the original solicitor continued to conduct the litigation, "I could not have had any confidence that future court orders would be complied with timeously or at all."

A witness statement from former Wales international Alix Popham, on behalf of the union players committee, said the players have appointed James Oldnall, managing partner of Milberg London, as independent counsel to advise them on their position "vis-à-vis KP Law and [litigation funder] Asertis (as Asertis and KP are part of the same corporate group)."

Relief will be subject to conditions to be decided at a further hearing, with minimum terms including payment of the defendants' costs of securing compliance and production of the missing documents.

Leslie Perrin, chairman of Calunius Capital, has argued that the Competition Appeal Tribunal's developing approach to litigation funding agreements poses a more immediate threat to the UK's opt-out collective actions regime than either the unimplemented Civil Justice Council recommendations or the still-awaited PACCAR reversal.

As reported by City AM, Perrin welcomed the government's recent light-touch proposals on the opt-out regime, which followed a Department for Business consultation and cover faster distributions in successful class actions, better management of legal costs and procedural reforms. But he wrote that funders still await implementation of key CJC recommendations on returns made a year ago, as well as the legislation promised to reverse the 2023 Supreme Court judgment in PACCAR.

His central concern is retrospective reassessment. Perrin wrote that the Tribunal "appears increasingly willing to revisit funding arrangements and priority agreements when determining distributions, effectively reassessing returns after a case has concluded," and that the concept of success being applied "remains uncertain and may depend on factors that were impossible to predict when funding was first committed."

Perrin framed the consequence in market terms: "Capital is mobile. Investors will only deploy funds into litigation if the potential return reflects the risks undertaken." He argued that no investment market can function if agreements are liable to be substantially redrawn after the event, and that if returns can be recalculated years later, funding becomes more expensive and some claims may never be brought at all.

Ten years after the first UK opt-out collective action was filed at the CAT, Perrin said scrutiny of funder returns is appropriate but must involve a level playing field, describing the issue as a test of whether Britain remains committed to a predictable and investment-friendly legal framework.

LB Capital, a specialty finance company providing pre-settlement litigation funding nationwide, has announced a planned $30 million institutional capital raise to support the expansion of its litigation finance platform.

As reported via PR Newswire, the company intends to pursue a strategic institutional capital partnership, with management expecting to begin discussions in September 2026 and targeting completion of the financing later in the year. The company said it will approach investment banks, private credit funds, family offices and strategic financing partners.

LB Capital operates through a partnership with Legal-Bay Funding, one of the more established lawsuit funding originators in the United States, and said it draws on more than twelve years of experience developing a proprietary origination platform. Proceeds from the raise are earmarked for an expanded funding portfolio and origination capacity, technology and infrastructure investment, longer-term growth initiatives, and a marketing expansion beginning in 2027.

Dr. Peter Caravella, the company's founder and chief executive, said the objective is to establish "a long-term institutional capital relationship that supports disciplined portfolio expansion while delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns." Chris Janish, chief executive of Legal-Bay Funding, said the company believes additional capital could "produce 30% origination sales growth over the next 3 years."

The announcement lands at a moment when consumer legal funding is under sustained scrutiny in the United States, with state legislatures weighing disclosure and rate rules and national media examining how advances to plaintiffs are financed. A raise of this size, aimed squarely at institutional credit investors, indicates that capital formation in the consumer segment is continuing regardless.

Newly filed accounts for Barings Limited, the north-west England claims firm known as Barings Law, show a business carrying substantial litigation funding debt at high interest rates and now seeking to restructure those facilities through a debt-for-equity swap.

As reported by the Law Society Gazette, the Companies House filing for the year to March 2025 shows pre-tax losses rising 78% to £22m on turnover up 490% to almost £2.2m. Long-term borrowing extended from £66m to £92m, leaving the business with net liabilities of £46m at the accounting date and £95,000 in cash against £47m of assets.

The funding terms are the striking detail. Loans totalling £59.4m are secured by fixed and floating charges in favour of the lender Claim Finance & Administration Co Limited, attract interest at rates of between 28% and 37%, and carry no fixed repayment date. The firm said it plans to repay all external litigation funding over the next five years, describing interest on borrowings as a "very significant" cost, and is negotiating a restructuring of its funding facilities that will include a debt-for-equity swap intended to remove the debt from the balance sheet and cut ongoing interest costs. Completion was expected by the end of August.

Chairman Robert Whitehead said the firm has invested heavily in caseload across motor finance, data breach and business interruption work, which must be funded up front while the value of work in progress goes unrecognised until cases settle. For the second year running, the auditor flagged a material uncertainty over the firm's ability to continue as a going concern, noting that much of its economic value sits in contingent fee case portfolios that cannot be booked as assets.

The Financial Conduct Authority has issued a consumer warning on high-risk mini-bonds and loan notes sold by unregulated firms, pointing directly to the collapse of a litigation funder as an illustration of what can go wrong.

As reported by Money Marketing, the regulator told consumers they could lose their entire investment in such products, and highlighted the failure of Woodville Consultants, which raised capital from retail investors through unregulated loan notes before entering administration. The FCA permanently banned the marketing of speculative illiquid securities, including mini-bonds and loan notes, to retail consumers in 2021, yet the products continue to surface in online advertising.

The regulator set out a series of warning signs for investors: pressure to commit quickly, vague explanations of how money could be lost, unsubstantiated claims that an investment is asset-backed, the involvement of unregulated introducers, pressure to self-certify as an experienced or high-net-worth investor, unclear fee structures and conflicts of interest, and attempts to create a false impression of legitimacy through links to regulated firms or overseas listings.

Lucy Castledine, the FCA's director of consumer investments, said: "Big, fixed returns are a warning sign, not a guarantee." The regulator has issued more than 1,200 warnings during 2026 and urged consumers to use its Firm Checker tool before parting with money. Separately, City AM reported that Woodville defaulted owing over £240m to investors. For the funding industry, the episode marks a shift in how regulators frame the sector's retail-facing edge — not as a niche investment product, but as a consumer protection problem.

A new investigation has reconstructed how Woodville Consultants, the Welsh litigation funder that collapsed into administration in July 2026, raised in excess of £300m from individual investors to bankroll law firms pursuing car finance commission claims.

As reported by Car Dealer Magazine, drawing on an investigation by The Times, Woodville continued raising money through unregulated loan notes after the Financial Conduct Authority asked the business in 2022 to cease financial promotions relating to investments or loans. In that same year the regulator placed Integrity Protect No 1 — a company run by directors Ann Marie Bell and Peter Legge — under restrictions over its handling of loan notes, citing evidence of borrowing funds via loan notes using Woodville's bank account.

The fundraising reached well beyond the UK, with the operation expanding to target investors in South America, Europe and Africa. It drew on sales networks connected to failed investment schemes, including the 79th Group, which is the subject of a City of London Police fraud investigation. Promoters are reported to have earned commissions of 10% to 15%, which some investors say were never disclosed to them.

Robert Goodhew of Kroll, appointed as administrator, said: "Based on the information currently available to us, we believe that more than £300 million has been raised from investors." Administrators are now examining how assets were distributed, whether the underlying legal claims were viable, payments made to third parties, and whether the business model was sustainable at all. The case has become the sharpest example yet of the risks created when consumer claims funding is financed from the retail investment market rather than institutional capital.