The global litigation finance conference series LITFINCON will hold its first Asia-focused event on June 3–4, 2026 at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, a signal of the sector's accelerating expansion into the Asia-Pacific region.

According to PR Newswire, LITFINCON Asia 2026, organized by Siltstone Capital, will convene senior institutional investors, law firms, litigation funders, insurers, and dispute resolution professionals across six panels. Programming will address Asia-Pacific legal finance trends, intellectual property as an asset class, international arbitration, insurance risk transfer, cross-border capital formation, and the secondary market.

Jim Batson, chief investment officer of legal finance at Siltstone Capital, will deliver opening remarks, with co-founder Robert Le speaking on capital allocation strategies. "The window in Asia is open right now," Batson said. "Singapore and Hong Kong have built the infrastructure. The deal flow is there." HOZU Capital is the diamond sponsor, with supporting partners including Deminor, Omni Bridgeway, and Bailey & Glasser LLP.

The event qualifies for 5.75 CPD credits, with registration available at litfinconasia.com. The launch follows LITFINCON's earlier European debut and reflects growing institutional interest in funded disputes across jurisdictions where Singapore and Hong Kong have established arbitration and funding frameworks. It underscores how litigation finance is consolidating as a global asset class with maturing infrastructure in major Asian dispute resolution hubs.

Consumer legal funder Legal-Bay has announced that it is actively providing pre-settlement funding to plaintiffs in the Depo-Provera product liability litigation, offering non-recourse advances as the coordinated proceedings move through early discovery.

According to PR Newswire, lawsuits involving Pfizer's injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera are in mid-stage litigation across U.S. courts, with plaintiffs alleging the product caused serious health complications including decreased bone density and meningioma brain tumors, as well as inadequate warnings about long-term risks. Cases are being organized through coordinated proceedings, with bellwether trials expected to shape future settlement values; no global settlement has been finalized.

Legal-Bay's funding is non-recourse, meaning plaintiffs repay advances only if they prevail or settle, with no repayment obligation absent a recovery. The funder said applications from lawyers and plaintiffs in active Depo-Provera matters are typically approved within 24 to 48 hours of receiving case documentation. "We are very active in this litigation and are a preferred funder to many of the top Depo Provera firms in the country," said Legal-Bay chief executive Chris Janish.

The announcement illustrates the continued role of consumer legal funding in large mass tort dockets, where plaintiffs often face extended timelines before resolution. It also reflects funders' practice of positioning early in emerging product liability litigation as bellwether outcomes begin to define potential settlement frameworks.

Nkosana Makate, the inventor of Vodacom's "Please Call Me" service, has asked the Pretoria High Court to set aside a 2011 funding agreement that entitles UK-based investor Errol Elsdon to 40% of the multimillion-rand settlement Makate is set to receive after a 17-year dispute with the telecommunications group. The challenge places the enforceability of third-party litigation funding contracts squarely before a South African court.

As reported by Sowetan, Makate entered into an arrangement under which Black Rock, a British Virgin Islands company associated with Elsdon, would fund all of his legal costs against Vodacom in exchange for a 40% share of any eventual recovery. Makate's legal team now argues that Black Rock "breached the contract from the start because it never had the money to fund the litigation," noting that the company was deregistered in 2014 after failing to file financial statements.

Makate further alleges that Elsdon and his associates made fraudulent misrepresentations about Black Rock's financial standing before the agreement was signed. Elsdon counters that his company advanced approximately R2.9 million toward Makate's legal fees before encountering cash-flow difficulties.

The case has not yet been heard. Its outcome could carry broader implications for how courts assess funder capacity, disclosure, and the proportionality of contingent returns in cross-border litigation funding agreements.

The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) is applying markedly closer scrutiny to collective proceedings at the certification stage, a shift that practitioners describe as significant and that carries direct consequences for the litigation funders backing opt-out class actions.

As reported by The Law Society Gazette, the tribunal is increasingly testing the viability of claims early rather than deferring those questions to trial. In Waterside Class Ltd v Mowi ASA, the CAT declined to certify a 44-million-person salmon cartel claim, citing proportionality concerns where a £21 million costs budget was weighed against potential per-claimant damages of £2 to £9. The pattern echoes Gutmann v First MTR, which produced a £25 million settlement with a take-up rate below 1%, distributing funds to fewer than 7,300 of roughly 10 million potential claimants.

The tribunal now expects realistic distribution projections at the outset, rigorous value-for-money testing, and class representative fees set at "public sector rates," having rejected proposed charges of £300 per hour. It has also signalled it will examine how stakeholders are compensated if class members fail to materialise.

For the funding sector, the recalibration compounds existing uncertainty surrounding the debate over reversing the PACCAR ruling, including the prospect of retrospective fee-recovery challenges. Funders face a more demanding gateway to certification at a moment when the economics of large consumer claims are already under pressure.

The Law Commission has launched a project to consider the potential introduction of a dedicated consumer class actions regime, a development with meaningful implications for where funded collective claims may be brought in England and Wales.

As reported by Legal Futures, the initiative responds to a structural problem: the opt-out collective proceedings mechanism currently sits within the Competition Appeal Tribunal and is therefore confined to competition-law claims. As a result, claimant lawyers and funders have at times framed consumer grievances as competition issues to access the only viable collective route, a practice the commentary suggests is neither sustainable nor principled.

A standalone consumer redress regime could open opt-out class actions to a broader range of claims, from product liability and data protection to financial mis-selling, without the need to characterise them as competition matters. For the litigation funding sector, that prospect represents both opportunity and uncertainty, as the design of any new regime would shape case economics, costs exposure, and the role of third-party capital.

The Law Commission's review arrives as the CAT tightens certification standards for existing collective proceedings, underscoring a period of structural reassessment for group litigation in the United Kingdom. The scope, funding rules, and certification thresholds of any proposed regime will be closely watched by funders and defendants alike as the project progresses.

EY UK has paid £105.5 million to the administrators of collapsed healthcare group NMC Health to settle long-running claims that the firm was negligent in its audits between 2012 and 2018, and newly disclosed figures show third-party litigation funders captured a substantial share of the proceeds.

As reported by Insurance Journal, NMC's administration report filed on May 8, 2026 disclosed that £47.9 million was repaid to litigation funders, together with an agreed litigation return of £22.2 million, bringing total funder recoveries to roughly £70 million. The settlement was reached on confidential terms without admission of liability by EY, which has stated only that it is no longer in dispute with NMC and declined further comment.

NMC Health, once a FTSE 100 constituent, entered administration in 2020 after the disclosure of billions of dollars in undisclosed debt and alleged accounting fraud. Administrators at Alvarez & Marsal pursued more than £2 billion in damages, alleging EY breached its contract and duty of care; EY maintained throughout that its auditors had been deceived by a sophisticated fraud. The matter went to a 15-week trial before Dame Clare Moulder in May 2025 and settled before judgment.

The case stands as a prominent illustration of the role of litigation finance in insolvency-driven professional negligence claims, where funder capital enables estates to pursue high-value recoveries that benefit creditors. The return figures offer a rare public window into the economics of a large funded auditor claim.

The UK government's annual legislative agenda set out in the King's Speech this week made no mention of the long-promised litigation funding bill, leaving the industry's preferred reversal of the Supreme Court's 2023 PACCAR ruling unresolved. The omission comes despite a December commitment from ministers to legislate on PACCAR and introduce a new regulatory framework for funders, and it has drawn sharp rebukes from across the third-party funding sector.

As reported by Legal Futures, counsel and funders called the absence a setback for the competitiveness of England and Wales as a litigation hub. White & Case partner Robert Wheal said the government had "recognised that uncertainty caused by the PACCAR ruling risked undermining the competitiveness of England and Wales as a global hub for commercial litigation and arbitration," adding that it was "disappointing that time has not been found for the necessary legislation."

Jeremy Marshall, chief investment officer at Winward Litigation Finance, warned that the continuing ambiguity is eroding investor appetite. "Uncertainty is unhelpful for any investor and litigation funding is no different," he said, noting that the UK's premium standing in global legal services depends on credible funding rails for both consumer and commercial claims.

Trade bodies including the Association of Litigation Funders and the International Legal Finance Association voiced "deep disappointment" at the omission. The Ministry of Justice is reportedly waiting to attach the funding legislation to a suitable vehicle bill later in the parliamentary session.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has proposed a rule that would require parties in Section 337 intellectual property investigations to disclose their litigation funding arrangements, including the identities of entities that hold financial interests in or exercise control over case strategy and settlement decisions. The stated objective is to surface potential conflicts of interest and bring greater clarity to a venue that has become a primary forum for patent enforcement against imports.

As reported by Winston & Strawn, partner Alexander Ott discussed the proposal with Law360 and framed the disclosure regime as a tool that supports the agency's statutory mandate. "The commission's goal is to defend U.S. domestic industry," Ott said, making it important for the ITC to know "all the parties with a financial stake."

Ott suggested that commissioners could use funding information to weigh exclusion-order remedies more carefully, evaluating "how their decision helps or hurts the domestic industry ultimately." The argument lands inside a broader U.S. policy debate over whether mandatory funding disclosure should be confined to specific dockets or extended across federal courts, an issue currently before the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules.

If adopted, the ITC rule would mark the first formal, agency-level disclosure mandate aimed squarely at funded patent cases, layering a transparency obligation that plaintiffs and funders have resisted in district court litigation. The proposal is expected to draw written comments from funders, the patent bar, and large importers before the commission finalizes any change.

Burford Capital shareholders approved all 16 resolutions at the company's 2026 annual general meeting, ratifying the board's director slate, a final dividend, and a full suite of capital and share-issuance authorities. Roughly 70% of the company's outstanding shares were represented at the May 13 meeting, with every resolution clearing by a comfortable majority.

According to Burford's Form 8-K filing, shareholders re-elected all seven directors standing, with support ranging from 84.78% for John Sievwright to 96.90% for CEO Christopher Bogart. The board's $0.0625-per-share final dividend was approved with 96.73% support and is payable on June 12, 2026 to holders of record on May 22.

The advisory say-on-pay vote drew 72.92% backing, the lowest level of support among the governance items, while the reappointment of KPMG as auditor was nearly unanimous at 99.89%. Shareholders also authorized the board to issue ordinary shares for general corporate purposes (96.23%), conduct market repurchases (98.01%), and disapply pre-emption rights for both general share issuances (96.90%) and acquisitions (96.52%).

The vote arrives weeks after Burford's Q1 disclosures detailing a $2.4 billion YPF-related write-down and a strategic pivot toward a more diversified portfolio. Broad shareholder support for the capital framework gives management latitude to commit fresh capital, buy back stock, or finance acquisitions as it executes that repositioning.