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Case Developments Commercial

Class Action Against British Telecommunications Gains Court Approval

The Competition Appeals Tribunal has granted permission for a class action against British Telecommunications to move forward. The action could be worth as much as GBP 600 million, and asserts rampant overcharging of landline customers. The action is being funded by third-party funder Harbour Litigation Funding. Harbour Litigation Funding explains that Justin Le Patourel, founder of a group called Collective Action on Land Lines (CALL), has launched the case, which could represent as many as 2.3 million customers. Noted law firm Mishcon de Reya will be advising on the case. Many of these customers are land-line only or purchased phone plans and broadband services without bundling them into a single package. Claimants could be entitled to as much as GBP 500 each. This is significant, as many impacted claimants are on fixed incomes. Harbour CIO Ellora MacPherson stated that the case may serve as a reminder of the importance of litigation funding in the pursuit of justice—especially for those, like these BT customers, who could not otherwise afford to see their day in court. Claimants not wishing to participate may opt out.
Announcements Commercial Deals

Fortress Announces Integration of Vannin Capital into Fortress Legal Assets Business

Fortress Investment Group LLC (“Fortress”) today announced that following the acquisition of Vannin Capital by funds managed by Fortress in 2019, the operations of Vannin Capital are now being restructured into the Fortress Legal Assets business.
As part of the restructuring, a number of Vannin Capital employees will transfer to Fortress. This change will have no impact on Vannin Capital’s existing investments, and Vannin Capital will remain the counterparty to its various litigation funding agreements. The restructuring is taking effect immediately. “We are confident that this combination will further strengthen our leadership position in the litigation finance market, broadening our sourcing capabilities and bringing counterparties the benefits of a deeply experienced, fully-integrated, global Legal Assets team,” said Jack Neumark, Managing Director and head of the Fortress Legal Assets business. “We believe this represents a logical next step for our Legal Assets business and managed funds as a whole, which will now receive the full benefit of the expertise and relationships that the Vannin Capital employees have built over the last decade.”
About Fortress
Founded in 1998, Fortress manages $53.9 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2021, on behalf of approximately 1,800 institutional clients and private investors worldwide across a range of credit and real estate, private equity and permanent capital investment strategies.
Announcements Commercial People Moves

Omni Bridgeway expands its team of US-based investment professionals

Omni Bridgeway (formerly known in the US as Bentham IMF) is pleased to announce a significant expansion of its US investment team to accommodate its growth in the world’s hottest legal finance market. In addition to adding four brand new investment professionals, we are thrilled to announce the promotion of four team members who have been key players on our US team. In New York, former Kirkland & Ellis LLP partner Ian Spain has joined Omni Bridgeway as an Investment Manager and Legal Counsel, bringing with him over a decade of complex litigation experience. Chris Citro, also formerly of Kirkland, has joined the team as a Legal Counsel with specialized experience in patent litigation (including ITC matters) and other intellectual property disputes. In Los Angeles, former Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman Counsel Justin Brossier comes aboard as an Associate Investment Manager and Legal Counsel, where his diverse prior litigation experience will enable him to identify strong investment opportunities as well as provide sound strategic advice to Omni Bridgeway’s internal Investment Committee and to external stakeholders alike. And in Houston, Raj Duvvuri joins as an Investment Manager and Legal Counsel. A graduate of Harvard Law School with deep ties in the Houston market, Raj began his career at top-tier law firms such as Baker Botts. Most recently, Raj served as the General Counsel for Atlas Operating LLC and Affiliates, a privately held energy and real estate conglomerate known for operation of oil and gas assets and commercial properties in U.S. and Canada. His unique combination of law firm and in-house skills and expertise will be key as the company’s corporate and law firm portfolio financing opportunities continue to grow in size and number. “Omni Bridgeway is the gold standard in this industry, and I am honored and excited to join the organization,” observed Justin. Similarly, Raj remarked that "Omni Bridgeway has an unmatched reputation in the funding space and is at an exciting moment in its development. I'm thrilled to be joining the team." In addition, Omni Bridgeway is delighted to announce the promotion of the following investment professionals, all of whom have displayed excellent judgment and counsel on potential opportunities and funded investments. They have expertly navigated several funded matters through their life cycle and have assisted Omni Bridgeway with its growth and expansion into new legal finance areas, from private equity to insolvency and international arbitration. Advancing to Investment Manager and Legal Counsel are Amy Geise in Houston and John Harabedian in Los Angeles. Both Sarah Jacobson in New York and Nilufar Hossain in San Francisco are being promoted to Associate Investment Manager and Legal Counsel. “All of these team members have proven themselves to be great assets. Moving them up the ranks is not only recognition of all their hard work and dedication to maintaining Omni Bridgeway as the go-to funder in the US, it also demonstrates our commitment to promote well-deserving folks from within,” says US Chief Investment Officer Allison Chock. On the recent hires and promotions, Andrew Saker, Omni Bridgeway’s Managing Director & CEO and Chief Strategy Officer, notes that “the expansion of the US investment group is a direct result of the demand we are seeing in the market for legal finance products and also displays our advancement of, and execution on, our US growth strategy to remain a top dispute finance funder regionally, as well as globally. Keep an eye on this space; we’re just getting started.”
ABOUT OMNI BRIDGEWAY
Omni Bridgeway is a global leader in financing and managing legal risks, with expertise in civil and common law legal and recovery systems, and with operations around the world. Omni Bridgeway offers dispute finance from case inception through to post-judgment enforcement and recovery. Since 1986, it has established a record of financing disputes and enforcement proceedings.
Commercial

Litigation Funding Experiences Maturity and Growth

As more investors discover the benefits of Litigation Finance, funders have had to become more proactive about funding cases. Collective action cases are particularly attractive to funders due to large class sizes and the potential for high payouts. As the industry becomes larger and more influential, innovations abound. Law Gazette details that competition between funders is becoming more pronounced—as courts must now parse disagreements between separate claimant groups for the same matter. Meanwhile, a push for standardized funding agreements and other types of standard documentation is underway. This advancement is expected to help new investors to understand how litigation funding works to better inform their investment strategies. COVID-19 has spurred the industry forward in several key ways. Perhaps most impactful is the embrace of high-end investors who are increasingly seeking non-correlated investment opportunities. That, combined with the promise of impressively high returns, has investors flocking toward the industry. This past summer, Augusta Ventures’ new GBP 250 million fund brought its total assets under management to a staggering GBP 585 million. Once the funds are in hand, funders have an obligation to make that money work for investors. As funders seek to proactively find new cases to bankroll, collective actions are frequently on their radar. Neil Purslow of Therium Capital Management explains that funding is more common than ever in large group actions—leading to a symbiotic relationship between funders and cases. The Consumer Rights Act of 2015 has also impacted third-party litigation funding. The opt-out provision of the law means that a case with a huge class size—even in the millions—can be represented by a single person. However, in the case of multiple claimant groups, legal teams, or funders—only one group will be certified to represent the entire claimant class. There is a Competition Appeal Tribunal that makes these decisions. Largely though, litigation funding is self-regulated.
Commercial Deals

Virage Capital Management Inks Deal for Insurance Lawsuit Revenue

Miami company MSP Recovery, along with its new partner—Lionheart Acquisition Corp II—announced a deal with Virage Capital Management for a 50% share of all future awards against property and casualty insurers.   Claims Journal reports that software used by MSP assessed that as much as $50 billion in Medicare claims should legally have been paid by insurers. That number could expand to as much as $263 billion. CEO of MSP, John Ruiz, explains that while the company expects revenue from their efforts to recoup these payments, no revenue is projected to accrue until after 2022. MSP’s business software is the cornerstone of its business plan. It examines Medicare payouts to determine if they should have been paid by another payer—usually a private insurer. Because of the Medicare Secondary Payer Act, private claimants are eligible for double damages from insurers that failed to reimburse Medicare. On average, MSP collects just over two times the value of the bills paid by Medicare—because insurers who fail to pay endure interest payments as well as double damages. In addition, insurers will have to pay the market rate for care instead of the typical discounted rate for Medicare patients. So far, Ruiz’s plan appears to be working. A recent whistleblower lawsuit filed in a Michigan court is seeking billions from more than 300 auto insurers who allegedly filed false reports to Medicare. Ruiz expressed disdain for insurers who would turn a blind eye to their obligations.
Announcements Commercial Fundraising

Litigation Funder Validity Finance Raises New Managed Fund of $70 Million to Commit Alongside Permanent Capital Base

With demand for litigation finance continuing to grow among businesses of all sizes, leading dispute funder Validity Finance reports it has raised a new managed fund of $70 million in capital commitments. The newly raised “sidecar” fund further diversifies Validity’s business and advances its experience as an alternative asset manager.  To date, Validity’s third-party managed funds total nearly $150 million of assets under management, in addition to its permanent capital base.

Validity’s latest fund investors include its original private equity investors, as well as previously committed third-party investors and a prominent family office. Since its launch in mid-2018, Validity has committed nearly $300 million towards clients in more than 40 separate investments, helping clients in scores of commercial disputes, backing law firms as well as businesses, individuals and institutions. In the past 18 months, the firm has evaluated hundreds of potential investments and committed approximately $150 million toward a wide span of cases, including contract disputes, antitrust claims, trade secret and misappropriation claims, insurance coverage cases and intellectual property matters. The firm has also supported civil rights cases. Validity CEO Ralph Sutton commented: “The pandemic created enormous challenges for pending cases, with trial dockets slowed and financial pressures weighing on many claimants. We’re fortunate to have maintained a strong pipeline of capital and a circle of investors who support our approach to fairness and client needs. We’re especially pleased to welcome some prominent new investors into the fold.” Mr. Sutton noted the high demand from law firms seeking funding – for individual matters as well as portfolios.  “We can finally say that Big Law understands our business, and even many of the biggest, most profitable firms understand the value of non-recourse funding to help their clients and their own profitability, especially as time horizons for financial outcomes have stretched.” He also noted a pronounced uptick in funding requests from larger corporate clients seeking alternatives to conventional lenders or commercial finance companies.  “Corporates have come to appreciate the sophistication and focus of high-quality dispute funders. Even well-capitalized businesses understand the economic advantages of lit funding to move risk off their balance sheets.” Since its founding, Validity has reviewed over 1,500 investment opportunities, reflecting the firm’s exacting due diligence process. That process also reflects the caliber of Validity’s team of portfolio advisers, consisting of experienced trial lawyers from the country’s preeminent litigation firms, many of whom served as federal law clerks. The firm has backed commercial matters across federal and state courts, as well as domestic and international arbitrations. For the months ahead, Validity plans to continue expansion plans that were put on hold during the pandemic, with more growth anticipated before the end of 2021.  Validity has two U.S. offices (New York and Houston) and recently marked the one-year anniversary of launching its Tel Aviv office.

About Validity Validity is a commercial litigation finance company that provides non-recourse investments for a wide variety of commercial disputes. Validity’s mission is to make a meaningful difference in our clients’ experience of the legal system. We focus on fairness, innovation, and clarity. For more, visit www.validityfinance.com

Commercial Special Features

Day Two Recap of the LF Dealmakers Conference

Day two of of the two-day event saw a trio of panels that covered topics such as investment strategy and risk management, the interplay between fund types, and litigation finance as a tool for ESG. The first panel of the day was titles "CIO Roundtable: Focus on Investment Strategy & Risk Management," and was moderated by Steven Molo, Founding Partner of MoloLamken. Panelists included:
  • Patrick Dempsey, Chief Investment Officer, US, Therium Capital
  • Sarah Johnson, Co-Head Litigation Finance, The D. E. Shaw Group
  • Aaron Katz, Chief Investment Officer, Parabellum Capital
  • David Kerstein, Chief Risk Officer & Senior Investment Manager, Validity Finance
The conversation began with the rise of business interruption claims. Patrick Dempsey of Therium hasn’t seen much in the way of business interruption claims that have been successful yet.  There was an initial interest in this case type, but then a lot of negative decisions came out of federal courts, and so interest waned. That said, you can build a portfolio of these claims and hedge your risk going forward. Aaron Katz of Parabellum noted how his firm hasn’t been active in the business interruption space, though the pace of all other claim types is picking up, with interesting new product areas being developed, including credit-like structures, different stages of cases being presented, lower risk investment types, and even partial recourse feature investment. Sarah Johnson of D.E. Shaw commented on the emergence of new entrants into the litigation funding space. Competition does affect pricing, and this has more of an impact in creative structuring—with new tranches of risk being created. David Kerstein of Validity jumped in to parse this out. He has seen more competition in pricing in larger size deals, however not so much in the more modestly-sized deals. There is still competition there, as claimants are approaching a lot of funders, just not as much price pressure in these types of claims. The conversation then turned to bankruptcy. This was a very quick distressed cycle—given that there was a lot of sophisticated money chasing these deals, there wasn’t as much of a need for litigation funding. However, we may soon begin to see bankruptcies driven by litigation, which could prompt claimants to approach funders for partnership or monetization. And smaller cases might be a place for funders, given that these bankruptcy claims are typically underfunded. As David Kerstein of Validity noted, “When there are bankruptcies that are based on litigation assets or issues, litigation funders are well placed to come in and provide value.” And on the issue of insurance, Aaron Katz noted that judgments are being protected with insurance, products are out there to preserve capital or even back some of the profit in a deal. That said, Parabellum hasn’t seen it as part of the bread and butter of their work. Yet Katz feels it’s only a matter of time before insurance permeates the space, but we’re not there yet. Patrick Dempsey chimed in on his experience with insurance in UK-based claims. Adverse costs insurance is inherent in the jurisdiction there, and so insurance on a portfolio basis was being considered very early on. That was ultimately deemed unnecessary, but that discussion is starting to return, and will likely come back in full force. Therium only uses insurance for judgment protection in the U.S. On the issue of regrets, Sarah Johnson noted how she wishes she had been more aggressive at the outset—doing more deals, and being less price sensitive. Having worked previously in distressed investments, she was used to price sensitivity being an issue, but she found that the industry grew a lot faster and provided much better returns than perhaps even she expected. This speaks well to the industry’s continued growth potential. Later in the day, a pair of panels tackled topics such as fund types, deal structures and costs of capital, as well as ESG and impact investing. One interesting takeaway from the former discussion came from Sarah Lieber, Managing Director and Co-Head of the Finance Group at Stifel. Lieber commented on the large commercial bank syndication model that her firm is structured with. What Stifel does is essentially a merchant banking model—they use their own balance sheet and originate their own transactions. When they approach a partner, whether that is a litigation funder, insurance company, private equity or multi-strategy firm, they choose their partner based on the return profile. And they can syndicate their partnerships within a larger deal construct. Stifel generally operates in the $50MM+ range, and can take on multiple co-investors with various tranches. So Stifel operates in cooperation with many other in the space, in a syndicated investment model. Stifel's very presence in the market is emblematic of how prominent the funding industry has grown, and how much it has matured over the past few years. Doubtless there will be further maturation ahead, and likely more funding entities which enact a similar merchant banking model. As Tets Ishikawa Managing Director of LionFish noted (on the same panel discussion): “When the market started in the last 15-20 years, it really started as a litigation funding industry—as one single entity. But I believe this market will become like the commercial real estate market. There are many different types of real estate, just as there are many different types of litigation, so in the end there will be many different types of litigation finance investors.”
Case Developments Commercial

Plan to Sue Mercedes Over Role in Dieselgate Moves Forward

Three Warrington men are bringing a claim against German carmaker Mercedes, relating to its role in the recent dieselgate scandal. Working with lawyers from consumer rights firm Slater and Gordon, the trio expects the case to become a collective action. Slater and Gordon is also a joint lead attorney in the dieselgate action against Volkswagen. Warrington Guardian explains that the action against Mercedes is funded by third-party legal funder Asertis. This funding will allow potential claimants to join the case without an upfront fee. The action involves the aftermath of an emissions scandal that necessitated a recall of diesel Mercedes cars, after which a software update was made. About 25% of car owners who had this fix experienced issues with their car’s reliability. More than 30% of respondents stated that they lost confidence in the reliability of their car, and 81% said they felt Mercedes was not forthcoming about potential problems that the fix could cause. About 600,000 vehicles are believed to be affected. The allegations against Mercedes include the use of ‘defeat’ technology that allowed cars to provide inaccurate emissions data during testing. It’s also alleged that the carmaker colluded with other manufacturers to thwart tech that could have better protected the environment from car emissions. Mercedes representatives have stated that the claims are ‘unfounded,’ along with their intention to defend themselves.
Commercial Deals

Litigation Finance in China’s Belt and Road Initiative

Even among other large-scale infrastructure projects around the world, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is impressive. Its plan is to expand and fortify the Silk Road in an international effort that involves stakeholders from around the globe. In any venture of this size, legal disputes cannot be avoided. LCM's Nick Rowles-Davies, Roger Milburn, William Panlilio and Joe Durkin explain that international arbitration is often the most effective means to resolve disputes. But this can be costly and time-consuming. That’s why anyone involved in BRI disputes would do well to seek out third-party litigation funding. The scale and scope of the BRI means that a large and complicated network of stakeholders, contractors, governments, investors, and project companies will be involved. Many, but not all, will be Chinese. The various BRI projects are vulnerable to risks involving politics or even military action. Regulations may be inconsistent or non-existent, and the further impact of COVID is still unpredictable. The potential for international, multi-party disputes can be largely mitigated with a partnership with an experienced litigation funder. Because there is no established forum for BRI legal disputes, parties will have their own ideas about where, when, and how to address conflict. With that in mind, those involved should be ready for anything. Litigation finance doesn’t just help with managing legal costs (though it certainly does that too). When project budgets are developed, room isn’t always left for surprise legal disputes. Legal finance can provide funding for claimant side or defense side legal action—usually on a non-recourse basis. Not all BRI-impacted jurisdictions will allow the use of third-party legal funding. Many do, including Hong Kong, Singapore, and India, with China not specifically prohibiting the practice. Shifting risk to a litigation funder is a savvy business move and may be a necessary one as the BRI gets underway. After all, modern projects call for modern legal solutions.