North Carolina has become the first state in the nation to enact an outright ban on third-party litigation funding, after Governor Josh Stein signed House Bill 315 into law. The measure makes it unlawful for outside investors to finance civil lawsuits in exchange for a financial interest tied to the outcome of the case, marking a significant departure from the disclosure-and-transparency approach adopted by other states.

As reported by WWAY-TV3, the law defines litigation investment as providing money for the fees, costs, or expenses of pending or potential civil proceedings in return for compensation contingent on the result. The statute authorizes the state attorney general to seek injunctions and civil penalties against violators, though certain activities are carved out from the prohibition.

The bill drew broad legislative support, passing the House unanimously and clearing the Senate by a 45-1 margin. Business groups, including the North Carolina Chamber and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform, backed the measure, arguing it strengthens the state's legal and business climate. Critics counter that third-party funding can expand access to the courts for parties who otherwise lack the resources to pursue meritorious claims.

The development represents a notable escalation in the regulatory debate over litigation finance in the United States. While states such as Ohio and others have advanced transparency requirements, North Carolina's outright prohibition sets a new precedent that funders, defense interests, and legislators in other jurisdictions are likely to watch closely.

A coalition of 21 organizations led by the American Energy Alliance (AEA) has called on congressional leaders to close a tax provision that allows third-party litigation financiers to treat their profits as capital gains rather than ordinary income. The group argues the loophole enables foreign investors to extract effectively tax-free returns from U.S. court outcomes, with the American energy sector squarely in the crosshairs.

According to the American Energy Alliance, the letter was sent on June 22 to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and the tax-writing committees in both chambers. The coalition contends that foreign sovereign wealth funds and geopolitical rivals have deployed substantial capital into U.S. energy-related litigation, creating national security vulnerabilities through undisclosed financing arrangements.

"Foreign nationals and foreign corporations with no U.S. presence pay no U.S. withholding tax on these gains," said AEA President Tom Pyle. The letter frames third-party litigation funding as a high-yield alternative asset class and warns that foreign entities are weaponizing it in disputes over climate claims, intellectual property, mergers, and environmental regulation.

The campaign reflects the growing convergence of litigation finance, tax policy, and national security in Washington. While the letter does not cite a specific bill, its focus on capital gains treatment signals that funders' tax positions — long a secondary concern in the disclosure debate — are emerging as a distinct front in the broader fight over third-party funding.

Irwell Insurance Company has agreed a five-year capacity partnership with managing general agent Addept Insurance Services, significantly expanding the legal expenses insurance (LEI) capacity available to the UK specialist. The deal builds on an arrangement first struck in April 2025 and is designed to give Addept longer-term planning stability as demand for LEI cover accelerates.

As reported by Insurance Business, the expanded capacity will allow Addept to underwrite a greater volume of business, though financial terms were not disclosed. "Securing strong, quality capacity is a key strategic priority to maintain our pace of growth," said Addept managing director Richard Finan. Irwell chief executive Giles Reading said the partnership is focused on "delivering products that offer fair value to policyholders."

The agreement comes against a backdrop of mounting pressure on the UK's employment tribunal system. Caseloads reached 68,192 at the end of January 2026 — a nearly 50% year-on-year increase — while total outstanding claims now exceed 500,000 and disposals have fallen by roughly 20% over the same period.

Sweeping legislative changes are expected to drive claim volumes higher still. The Employment Rights Act 2025 will extend the claim time limit from three to six months in October 2026, and from January 2027 the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims will drop from two years to six months, with the compensation cap removed. For LEI providers, the reforms point to sustained demand — and a growing need for the kind of durable underwriting capacity the Irwell-Addept deal is intended to supply.

The Ohio Senate has passed House Bill 105, advancing what supporters describe as one of the most comprehensive third-party litigation funding measures in the country and sending it to Governor Mike DeWine for signature. The legislation targets what its sponsors call an opaque, billion-dollar industry in which anonymous or foreign actors can shape the course of American lawsuits without disclosure.

According to the Ohio House of Representatives, the bill requires parties to disclose the existence of litigation funding agreements to others in a case and bars the sharing of confidential court documents with funders. Sponsored by Reps. Meredith Craig and Jim Thomas, HB 105 would also require both consumer legal funding companies and commercial litigation financiers to register with the Ohio Attorney General before operating in the state, including disclosures about their leadership and affiliations.

The measure goes further than disclosure alone. It prohibits funders from influencing counsel selection, litigation strategy, or settlement decisions, and bars them from paying referral fees to attorneys. In a provision drawing national attention, the bill also restricts any foreign government, foreign corporation, or foreign investor from participating in third-party litigation funding within the state.

Business groups, including small-business advocates, have praised the bill as overdue transparency reform, while critics warn it could chill legitimate access to capital for plaintiffs. With the legislation now before Governor DeWine, Ohio is positioned to become an early bellwether for how aggressively states will regulate litigation finance.

A senior English costs judge has struck out a law firm's entire £30,000 success fee after finding that the firm failed to make reasonable inquiries into its client's existing legal expenses insurance before signing him to a conditional fee agreement. The ruling is a pointed reminder of the diligence funders and firms must exercise around pre-existing coverage before committing a client to risk-based financing.

As reported by Legal Futures, the case, Evans v Fletchers, arose from a 2017 motorcycle accident. The claimant, Peter Evans, had legal expenses insurance through his Zurich home policy, yet the firm took out after-the-event insurance and did not seriously investigate the existing cover until 2019. The claim settled in 2021 for £250,000 plus costs, and the firm billed £61,615, including a £30,365 success fee capped at 25% of damages.

Senior Costs Judge Jason Rowley disallowed the success fee in full, calling the firm's "desultory enquiries" fundamentally inadequate. He noted that specialist personal injury solicitors should have known the legal expenses insurer often differs from the home insurer, that inquiries made two years after the accident demanded greater diligence, and that the correspondence appeared designed to discourage a useful response. A competing firm, he observed, had easily identified the actual insurer.

The decision underscores that since success fees became largely unrecoverable after 2013, courts expect rigorous investigation of available "before-the-event" cover — a discipline with direct implications for how litigation is financed in the UK.

A cautionary first-person account from a retail investor is circulating as a warning about the risks lurking in consumer-facing litigation finance products — not in the underlying legal strategy, but in the structures wrapped around it. The piece arrives as more individual investors are drawn to litigation finance by promises of uncorrelated returns and pristine track records.

As reported by Alternative Assets, author Stefan von Imhof describes losing $10,000 in Fenchurch Legal's SPV 4, a vehicle marketed as financially sound with a "zero" default rate across hundreds of loans. The parent company entered administration in April 2026, putting more than 580 investors at risk of losing most or all of their capital. The core problem, he argues, was not the litigation lending itself but a special-purpose-vehicle structure that lacked genuine bankruptcy remoteness, leaving investors exposed to outside creditors.

His takeaways are blunt. A "0% default rate" is meaningless when platforms define default themselves. True ringfencing requires multiple legal protections, not marketing language, and most retail vehicles he examined were missing at least one. Named security trustees, insurers, and fund managers can disavow involvement when contacted directly. Audit opinions, he stresses, are the most revealing document, citing a reported £782 million in work-in-progress against only £87 million in deployed capital.

The overarching lesson for prospective investors is simple: independently verify every named entity rather than trusting the offering documents — a discipline that separates legitimate litigation finance from its imitations.

The United Kingdom's long-promised overhaul of litigation funding regulation has stalled again, and rival jurisdictions are moving to capture the investment that uncertainty is pushing offshore. Nearly three years after the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in *PACCAR* rendered most litigation funding agreements unenforceable by treating them as damages-based agreements, the government has yet to deliver the corrective legislation it pledged.

As reported by The Times, the continued delay is undermining the competitiveness of England and Wales as a global hub for commercial litigation and arbitration. The Ministry of Justice announced in December 2025 that it intended to clarify that litigation funding agreements are not damages-based agreements, with legislation to follow "when parliamentary time allows." But the 2026 King's Speech omitted any litigation funding bill from the legislative programme, leaving funders and claimants without the statutory certainty they had been promised.

Industry participants have voiced deep disappointment, warning that the absence of reform creates an opening for offshore centers that have already implemented clearer rules on funder involvement. While those jurisdictions compete for capital, the UK continues to develop its framework largely through case law, with little appetite for comprehensive statutory change.

The practical effect, observers note, is that funders weighing where to deploy capital may increasingly look beyond London. For a market that has long marketed itself as the world's premier venue for high-value disputes, the prolonged *PACCAR* limbo carries real economic stakes.

A New York appellate ruling, paired with the state's newly enacted consumer litigation funding law, is giving defendants fresh tools to scrutinize the financing behind personal-injury claims they suspect are fraudulent. Together, the developments mark a notable shift toward transparency in a market that has historically operated outside the view of courts and opposing parties.

As reported by Law360, the Appellate Division, First Department, held in *Lituma v. Liberty Coca-Cola Beverages LLC* that defendants may obtain discovery into a plaintiff's third-party litigation funding where they present evidence suggesting the underlying claims arose from systemic fraud. The November 2025 decision was the first time the court affirmed an order compelling a personal-injury plaintiff to produce funding-related discovery, vacating the note of issue to allow further inquiry.

The ruling lands alongside New York's Consumer Litigation Funding Act, signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on December 19, 2025, and effective 180 days later. The law caps a funder's recovery at 25% of a case's gross proceeds, requires plain disclosure of all charges and cumulative repayment amounts, and gives consumers a 10-business-day right to cancel without penalty. Attorneys are barred from accepting referral fees or holding financial interests in funding companies.

Notably, the statute stops short of mandating disclosure of funding arrangements during active litigation. For now, defendants seeking to expose questionable financing must rely on rulings like *Lituma* to pry those agreements into the open.

Burford Capital has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a Third Circuit decision that dismissed, on jurisdictional grounds, the litigation funder's bid to arbitrate a dispute tied to German antitrust litigation. Burford contends the appeals court committed what it called a "fundamental error" in concluding that federal courts lacked authority over the matter.

As reported by Law360, Burford told the justices on June 16 that the Court's own decision earlier this year in Jules v. Andre Balazs Properties is reason enough to undo the Third Circuit's ruling. In Jules, the Court held that a federal court which compels arbitration of federal claims under Section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act retains subject-matter jurisdiction to confirm or vacate the resulting award, even without an independent basis for federal jurisdiction over the post-award proceeding.

Burford argues that principle squarely governs its case, and that the appeals court's contrary conclusion cannot stand in light of the new precedent. The funder is asking the justices to take up the matter and correct what it describes as a clear jurisdictional misstep.

The stakes extend beyond a single dispute. For funders, the ability to confirm and enforce arbitral awards in federal court is central to monetizing cross-border claims, and a jurisdictional dead-end at the enforcement stage raises both cost and risk. A decision to hear the case could bring welcome clarity for funders pursuing international, arbitration-related recoveries.

A new entrant has joined the litigation finance conference circuit. The inaugural Chicago Litigation Finance Summit convened at the Museum of Contemporary Art in early May, organized by Charles Zuo, a graduating JD/MBA candidate at Northwestern University.

As reported by Above the Law, Zuo built the program around a deliberately broad agenda, with panels spanning deal structures, funders operating across different capital structures, policy and academic perspectives, and legal technology. He described aiming for "both a diverse set of people and a diverse set of topics," pairing speakers who shared expertise but brought genuinely different vantage points.

Zuo's path to convening the summit included externing at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois, clerking at Patterson Law, working at Bridge Legal, and serving as a law school ambassador for Harvey AI, alongside degrees in English literature, business analytics, and machine learning.

According to the profile, the inaugural event secured robust sponsor backing while maintaining editorial independence, and organizers reported strong feedback from attendees on the return generated by their participation.

The summit's arrival adds Chicago to a growing roster of regional venues where funders, lawyers, academics, and technologists gather as litigation finance continues to mature into an established asset class. Above the Law published the profile as the first installment of a two-part series.

A new lawsuit casts a harsh light on the consumer litigation funding model, with a major insurer accusing a New York funder of engineering a scheme to inflate personal injury claims at carriers' expense.

As reported by Insurance Business, New York Marine & General Insurance Company has sued Case Cash Funding and its principal, Gregory Elefterakis, a suspended attorney, in Manhattan federal court. The complaint, filed June 12, alleges that Case Cash advanced modest sums to injured claimants as "non-recourse" funding, then used its control over the claims to balloon them into multimillion-dollar demands.

According to the suit, the defendants paid referral fees to medical clinics, steered claimants toward favored attorneys, conditioned funding on claimants undergoing surgery, and blocked settlements that did not maximize their returns. In one instance, the parties had agreed on a $750,000 settlement, but the funder allegedly refused and asserted a lien of more than $1.4 million instead. The complaint cites a claimant who received just 13.3% of a $3.75 million settlement while the funder collected 47.5%, and another facing an effective interest rate of roughly 170%.

The filing also points to a securitization instrument, PEAR 2022-1, said to contain more than $84.6 million in receivables across nearly 16,807 advances—underscoring the scale of the operation. The case adds to mounting insurer pushback against consumer legal funding practices and feeds the broader debate over disclosure and regulation of the industry.

In a striking outcome for funded collective actions, the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal has signed off on the discontinuation of a £480 million claim against Qualcomm that delivers no compensation to the millions of consumers it was meant to benefit.

As reported by CDR News, the Tribunal approved a "drop-hands" settlement on June 10 under which all parties discontinue proceedings and bear their own costs. The claim, brought by the Consumers' Association (Which?) as class representative, had alleged that Qualcomm abused its market dominance to overcharge for smartphone chips, inflating handset prices.

The Tribunal assessed the claim's prospects at just 10% to 15%, concluding that the class representative "no longer had a realistic prospect of success." The result is believed to be the first CAT settlement resolved on a drop-hands basis, with neither the class nor the funder receiving any payment despite the claim's headline valuation.

The action had been backed by litigation funder Augusta Ventures alongside law firm Hausfeld. For the funder, the outcome represents a total loss on its investment in the case—a pointed illustration of the downside risk inherent in the opt-out regime.

The decision lands amid intensifying scrutiny of funded class actions in the UK, where the Tribunal has shown a growing willingness to test the merits, economics, and consumer benefit of collective proceedings before allowing them to advance or settle.

As private equity firms extend their reach into the legal industry, a new commentary argues that the tax code has failed to keep pace with how litigation funders actually earn their returns.

Writing for RealClearMarkets, Michael Toth contends that third-party litigation funders routinely claim favorable capital gains treatment on their returns when that income should be taxed as ordinary income. He notes that the Treasury Department "has never bothered to clarify the proper tax treatment of TPLF returns," leaving a roughly $20 billion industry to structure deals as "derivative contracts" despite funders performing work that closely mirrors that of plaintiffs' attorneys—vetting cases, advising on strategy, and managing litigation budgets.

The piece opens with Fortress's recent $125 million investment in an Arizona personal injury firm, which Toth frames as evidence that funders are shifting from wagering on individual case outcomes toward financing law firms' back-office operations and steadier revenue streams. He argues that the disclosure bills congressional Republicans have introduced since 2019 are "focused on yesterday's market," addressing single-case funding even as investors move toward portfolio and operational models. He also flags that nonresident foreign funders can often avoid federal tax on U.S. litigation gains altogether.

Toth's proposed fix relies on existing authority: he urges Treasury to apply the substance-over-form doctrine and tax funding returns as ordinary business income, while noting that Congress could amend the definition of capital assets to exclude legal claims.

The credibility of the UK's opt-out collective action regime increasingly depends on a stubborn problem: persuading class members to actually claim the damages won on their behalf.

As reported by The Law Society Gazette, Rachel Rothwell, editor of Litigation Funding, examines how little of the money awarded in landmark cases is reaching the consumers it is meant to compensate. In Gutmann v South Western Trains, the boundary fares case, roughly £25 million was awarded—yet take-up was less than 1%, with only about £200,000 distributed to class members and £3.8 million directed to the Access to Justice Foundation. Many passengers, she notes, abandoned their claims once asked to supply bank details, wary of fraud.

The forthcoming Merricks v Mastercard payout will test the regime on a far larger scale. With £100 million of the £200 million settlement ringfenced for as many as 44 million potential claimants—roughly £45 to £70 each—the case has become a referendum on whether opt-out actions can deliver for the public rather than primarily for lawyers and funders.

Rothwell canvasses several proposed fixes: a central public register of claims endorsed by government or the courts; compelling defendants, particularly in the tech and utility sectors, to assist with distribution; and building trust through charities and consumer groups while offering vouchers in place of direct bank transfers. Legitimacy, she argues, hinges on a meaningful share of damages reaching those actually harmed.

The High Court has rejected litigation funder Innsworth's judicial review challenge to the Competition Appeal Tribunal's distribution of the £200M Merricks v Mastercard settlement, ending the first substantive test of a CAT settlement decision and handing class representative Walter Merricks what he called "a total victory."

As reported by Legal Futures, the CAT's January ruling allocated the first £100M to consumers, repaid Innsworth its estimated £46M outlay, and capped the funder's profit at 50% — roughly £23M — for a guaranteed total return of about £68M. In setting a 1.5x return, the tribunal noted that the settlement of a claim originally valued at £14bn was "very far from a success" for the 44M-member class.

Lord Justice Males rejected all three grounds of review, observing that a 50% profit "was not a bad result" for a funder that would likely have lost its entire investment had the case gone to another trial. Merricks accused Innsworth of seeking "to elevate its grab for profits over and above all other considerations," and said distribution to consumers can now begin. Innsworth, which is separately pursuing arbitration against Merricks, warned that inadequate funder returns will drive "a reallocation of capital towards lower-risk claims," and accused the CAT of acting as "a de facto regulator of the litigation funding market" while offering no clear guidance on permissible returns.

Winward Litigation Finance CIO Jeremy Marshall predicted the ruling "will certainly put the brakes on funders' appetites" for CAT claims.

While most state legislatures have pursued disclosure and registration regimes for litigation finance, North Carolina is advancing something far more drastic: an outright ban.

As reported by Bloomberg Law, North Carolina senators have approved legislation that bans litigation finance in the state, sending the measure to the state House.

The vehicle is House Bill 315, which began life as a "Gift Card Theft & Unlawful Business Entry" bill before being rewritten in the Senate as "an act to prohibit litigation investments in the civil justice system, to prevent the civil justice system from becoming a financial investment market." The amended bill makes it unlawful "to engage in litigation investment" in North Carolina or to furnish litigation investment to a party or counsel of record in a civil proceeding — defining litigation investment broadly as any provision of money for litigation fees, costs, or expenses in exchange for repayment contingent on the outcome.

The bill carves out narrow exceptions for contingency-fee arrangements, insurer obligations, nonprofit legal aid, non-contingent loans, and funding from family members. Its legislative findings lean heavily on national security concerns, citing the risk of undisclosed foreign persons and entities investing in domestic litigation.

The measure stands in sharp contrast to recent state activity elsewhere — Kansas, Michigan, and New Jersey have all advanced transparency-focused frameworks this year that regulate rather than prohibit the industry. If enacted, North Carolina would become one of the most restrictive litigation finance jurisdictions in the country, and industry critics have already characterized the gut-and-replace maneuver as a legislative bait-and-switch.

A proposed UK collective action against major musical instrument manufacturers is collapsing for want of litigation funding — a concrete illustration of the financing squeeze facing claims in the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

As reported by Law360, consumer rights advocate Elisabetta Sciallis applied on Wednesday to withdraw her proposed class action against Fender, Yamaha, and other musical instrument manufacturers, saying she had been unable to secure litigation funding despite years of effort.

Sciallis, a principal policy adviser at consumer group Which?, filed a series of proposed opt-out collective actions in 2022 on behalf of consumers who purchased musical instruments, following on from Competition and Markets Authority decisions fining several manufacturers for resale price maintenance. The claims had been stalled at the certification stage for years, and the tribunal had grown increasingly impatient: a March 2026 case management order listed a preliminary hearing for after June 5 specifically to determine the adequacy of the proposed class representative's funding and insurance arrangements.

The withdrawal underscores a broader theme in the UK collective actions regime. With the CAT tightening its scrutiny of certification and funder returns — and with the Innsworth-Mastercard distribution fight casting doubt on the economics of opt-out claims — funders have become increasingly selective about which collective proceedings they will back. For proposed class representatives unable to assemble a viable funding package, even claims that follow on from regulatory infringement findings may prove impossible to sustain.

More than £3.7M left unclaimed from a funded rail passenger class action is being redeployed to support free legal advice services across the UK, offering a window into what happens to undistributed damages in the Competition Appeal Tribunal's collective actions regime.

As reported by Consumer Voice, the money comes from the Boundary Fares class action involving South Western Trains, brought on behalf of passengers allegedly overcharged for journeys extending beyond their London Travelcard zones. While thousands of class members came forward, millions of pounds remained unclaimed when the settlement distribution closed, and the CAT awarded the residue to the Access to Justice Foundation.

The foundation has now announced the recipients of its Improving Lives Through Advice 2026 programme, a three-year grants initiative funded by the unclaimed damages that will support 16 organizations providing free legal advice on housing, employment, debt, and consumer issues. In approving the award, the tribunal said the money "could make a huge difference in facilitating access to justice for the needy and vulnerable."

The scale of demand was striking: the grant programme received 315 applications requesting more than £70M. Foundation chief executive Clare Carter noted that while the £3.7M will have real impact, it "will not be sufficient to meet the sheer scale of unmet need," with more than 11M people each year failing to get help with legal problems.

The award also highlights the persistent take-up challenge in opt-out collective proceedings, where low claim rates routinely leave substantial settlement funds undistributed.

Consumer legal funder Legal-Bay LLC is expanding its summer funding initiatives to help plaintiffs manage rising seasonal expenses while their cases work through the courts.

According to PR Newswire, the New Jersey-based company is positioning its non-recourse cash advances as an alternative to credit cards, personal loans, or premature settlement offers for plaintiffs facing summer costs such as travel, childcare, camps, and higher utility bills. Because the advances are non-recourse, clients repay only if their case resolves successfully; if there is no recovery, there is no repayment obligation.

"Summer should be a time for families to relax and enjoy themselves, not worry about how they're going to pay bills while waiting for a lawsuit to settle," said CEO Chris Janish. "Our mission is to provide fast, transparent legal funding that helps plaintiffs maintain financial stability throughout the litigation process."

Legal-Bay reports increased demand for lawsuit funding during the summer months, and says it works directly with attorneys and plaintiffs nationwide to expedite approvals — often delivering funding decisions within 24 to 48 hours of receiving required documentation. The company funds a wide range of case types, including personal injury, motor vehicle accidents, slip and falls, wrongful termination, workplace discrimination, medical malpractice, and mass tort litigation.

The seasonal push reflects a familiar pattern in the consumer legal funding market, where demand tends to track household cash-flow pressures as much as litigation timelines — and where funders increasingly market liquidity as a tool for plaintiffs to avoid settling early at a discount.

A new entrant has arrived in the European litigation funding market, with Felix von Zwehl announcing that MOMENTUM Legal Finance, a German funder he has spent recent months building, is now operational. Von Zwehl brings more than 15 years in dispute resolution and a decade in litigation finance to the venture, which is positioned around the enforcement of high-value commercial claims.

According to MOMENTUM Legal Finance, the firm is built on the conviction that markets create sustainable value only when their rules are respected, and that conduct such as cartels, abuse of dominant position, market manipulation, and intellectual property infringement harms not only individual claimants but trust, competition, and market integrity more broadly. The funder frames its mission as making private enforcement accessible, disciplined, and economically rational for those who have suffered harm.

MOMENTUM's model centers on financing the enforcement of claims and participating in the recovery upon success, with a deliberate focus on a select number of high-value commercial disputes. The firm also offers a claim-purchase option, acquiring claims outright to provide immediate liquidity. It says it combines legal-AI tools with the experience of senior industry figures on its advisory board to strengthen legal analysis, while stressing that technology is meant to support rather than replace human judgment.

Von Zwehl emphasized a client-centric approach, pledging to work directly with claimants as decision-makers rather than through layers of committees and to remain committed to cases through resolution. The launch adds further depth to Germany's increasingly competitive litigation funding landscape.

Burford Capital intends to expand its minority equity investments in elite law firms across the United Kingdom and United States, betting that growing appetite for law-firm ownership will open a new avenue alongside its core litigation finance business. The plan signals deepening convergence between funders and the firms they back.

As reported by Law360, Burford's new London-based chief operating officer told the publication that the funder plans to step up minority stakes in top-tier firms that already use its litigation finance. The strategy reflects what Burford describes as a growing market for law-firm equity, as relaxing rules on outside ownership in some jurisdictions create openings for capital providers to take direct positions in legal practices.

The move builds on arguments Burford leadership has advanced in recent months in favor of outside capital in law-firm ownership, positioning the funder to participate not only in the outcomes of individual cases but in the enterprise value of the firms litigating them. By targeting firms that are already clients, Burford can underwrite equity investments informed by an existing understanding of a firm's case portfolio and performance.

The plan lands amid an intensifying debate over non-lawyer ownership of law firms, with regulators in the U.S. and U.K. taking divergent approaches and several states moving to restrict private equity and outside investor control. For Burford, the largest publicly traded litigation funder, expanding into minority equity stakes represents a calculated push to broaden its footprint in a legal market increasingly open to institutional capital.

Uber has asked a London court to order law firm Mishcon de Reya to hand over its communications with a former litigation funder, arguing the documents are not privileged and could show that claims worth £340 million were brought out of time. The dispute reopens a recurring and contentious question in funded litigation: how far the shield of privilege extends over a party's dealings with its funder.

As reported by Law360, Uber is seeking correspondence between Mishcon de Reya and Harbour Litigation Funding Ltd., the funder previously connected to the claim valued at roughly £340 million ($455 million). Uber contends that the materials lack legal privilege and are therefore discoverable, and that they could demonstrate the claims were filed outside the applicable limitation period.

The request places the discoverability of funder communications squarely at issue. Parties resisting such demands typically argue that exchanges with funders are protected by litigation privilege or work-product principles, while opponents counter that purely commercial or timing-related communications fall outside those protections. Uber's bid frames the funder correspondence as potentially decisive on the threshold question of whether the claims are time-barred.

The application reflects a broader trend of defendants probing the relationship between claimants, their counsel, and their funders, particularly where the timing or financing of a claim may bear on its viability. The outcome could offer further guidance on where English courts draw the line between privileged litigation strategy and disclosable funding arrangements, an issue of mounting significance as third-party funding becomes embedded in high-value UK disputes.

CAC, the contingent-risk insurance arm of The Baldwin Group, has opened a London office to push into the UK and European market for litigation and contingent-risk insurance, products that increasingly underpin the litigation funding ecosystem. The expansion reflects rising demand for risk-transfer tools as collective actions and funded claims proliferate across Europe.

As reported by Insurance Business, CAC has placed more than $6.5 billion in insurance limits to date and is positioning London as a strategic hub to serve European clients. The firm pointed to a 93% rise in European class actions since 2019 and projections that the European litigation funding market will grow from €3 billion to €7 billion by 2032 as key drivers of the move.

To lead the office, CAC appointed Nick Moore as senior vice-president and head of its London contingent-risk practice. Moore brings more than 15 years across litigation, arbitration, and legal-asset investment, having qualified as a solicitor at CMS Cameron McKenna before holding senior investment roles at litigation funder Therium Capital Management and, more recently, contingent-risk leadership at a global insurance broker.

The London operation will offer after-the-event (ATE) insurance, capital protection cover, insurance-backed financing for law firms, secondary-market trade coverage, and adverse-judgment insurance, a suite of products closely intertwined with how funders structure and de-risk their portfolios. "Clients operate across multiple geographies and their exposures reflect that," said Andrew Mutter, executive vice-president of contingent-risk insurance, framing Moore's cross-disciplinary background as well-suited to the expansion. The entry adds capacity to a market on which litigation funders increasingly rely.

UK national law firm Irwin Mitchell is considering external private equity investment to repurchase shares held by former partners, a step that would mark another instance of outside capital flowing into the legal profession. The deliberations come as the boundaries around non-lawyer investment in law firms continue to shift on both sides of the Atlantic.

As reported by Law360, the firm is weighing outside investment to acquire shares held by former partners who collectively own more than half of the business. Irwin Mitchell stated that it "hasn't decided to accept outside investment," indicating the matter remains at a preliminary stage rather than a settled course of action.

The concentration of equity among former partners presents a structural and governance challenge, and a buyout funded by external capital could allow the firm to consolidate ownership and chart its strategic direction more freely. Such arrangements have become increasingly viable in England and Wales, where alternative business structures permit non-lawyer ownership of legal practices, a regime that has drawn growing interest from private equity.

The development adds to a steady stream of activity around outside investment in law firms, a trend that sits adjacent to litigation finance and has prompted regulatory pushback in several U.S. states wary of investor influence over legal practice. For the litigation funding community, Irwin Mitchell's deliberations underscore how private capital is steadily reshaping the ownership and economics of the firms that drive litigation, even as the appropriate limits of that capital remain hotly contested.

For litigants taking on sovereign states, third-party funding is often the only thing that makes a claim possible. That is the message from Tim Foden, co-head of international arbitration at Boies Schiller Flexner in London, who offered a candid defense of the funding industry and a window into the high-stakes world of investor-state disputes.

As reported by Non-Billable, Foden specializes in claims by companies seeking compensation for government conduct that destroys the value of their assets. He sorts these disputes into two categories: "laws" cases, in which regulatory changes block a project, and "guns" cases, involving outright seizures by state forces, much of his work centered on mining operations across sub-Saharan Africa and other emerging markets.

Foden pushed back forcefully against criticism that funders bankroll weak claims, calling such suggestions "fatuous" and emphasizing the rigor of funders' underwriting. "They diligence these cases within an inch of their lives," he said. He noted that clients who have lost major assets frequently lack the resources to pursue claims against well-funded sovereign adversaries on their own, making outside capital essential to leveling the playing field.

He also offered an optimistic read on London's standing as an arbitration center, observing that English law remains the preferred choice for international contracts and continues to anchor the city's relevance in global dispute resolution. Foden's account, including encounters with intimidation and dangerous site visits, underscores both the risks and the economics that make litigation funding indispensable to investor-state claims, a segment where the capital at stake and the adversaries involved are uniquely formidable.

Frustration is mounting over the UK government's failure to act on reversing the Supreme Court's 2023 PACCAR decision, with former members of the body that reviewed litigation funding warning that prolonged delay is damaging the market and eroding Britain's standing as a global dispute-resolution hub. Nearly three years on from the ruling, no corrective legislation has materialized.

As reported by the Law Society Gazette, Nicholas Bacon KC and Dr John Sorabji, both former members of the Civil Justice Council's working party on litigation funding, voiced sharp disappointment at the lack of progress. Bacon called the inertia "terribly frustrating" and warned that delay leaves cases trapped in satellite litigation, while Sorabji said the 14-month wait was incomprehensible given the urgency the CJC's report stressed and the ongoing market uncertainty.

The PACCAR ruling reclassified many litigation funding agreements as damages-based agreements, potentially rendering them unenforceable and triggering a wave of disputes over existing arrangements. The Civil Justice Council's review recommended urgently reversing the decision through retrospective legislation, a recommendation the government accepted, alongside a December 2025 pledge from courts minister Sarah Sackman KC to clarify that funding agreements are not damages-based agreements.

Yet no bill has emerged, and the King's Speech contained no provisions on the issue, with employment minister Kate Dearden recently citing the complexity of the review as justification for further time. Reformers warn that continued inaction risks pushing funded cases and investment toward rival jurisdictions, jeopardizing the UK's competitive advantage in international dispute resolution.

Booking.com is facing a planned £2 billion collective action in the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal over the pricing provisions in its contracts with hotels, in a claim financed by litigation funder Balance Legal Capital. The case is the latest example of third-party capital powering large-scale, opt-out consumer claims against major technology platforms.

As reported by MLex, the proposed claim will be brought before the Competition Appeal Tribunal on behalf of millions of UK consumers, with proposed class representative Chris Warner alleging that buyers have systematically overpaid for hotel and travel accommodation. Total damages are estimated at more than £2 billion, and the claim is expected to be filed at the tribunal soon.

At the heart of the case are the pricing provisions in Booking.com's agreements with hotels, which the claim contends harmed consumers by inflating the prices they paid. Such "price parity" arrangements have drawn sustained competition-law scrutiny across Europe, providing a foundation for follow-on damages claims of the kind now taking shape in the UK.

The case underscores the central role litigation funders continue to play in the UK's collective proceedings regime, where the scale and cost of opt-out claims make outside capital essential. Balance Legal Capital's backing allows a single representative to pursue redress on behalf of millions of consumers who could not realistically litigate individually. The filing also lands amid intensifying debate over the future of funded collective actions in Britain, as reformers press the government to restore certainty to litigation funding agreements in the wake of the PACCAR ruling.