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Omni Bridgeway Funds Fresh Paint-Peel Claim Against Toyota Australia

By John Freund |

Omni Bridgeway has stepped in to bankroll a newly-filed Federal Court class action alleging that certain 2010-14 Toyota Corolla models suffer from a manufacturing defect that causes factory “040 white” paint to flake under UV exposure. Lead plaintiff Mary Elizabeth Fabian seeks compensation for diminished vehicle value and associated distress.

An article in Lawyerly says William Roberts Lawyers lodged the claim late Wednesday in Sydney, with Omni providing “no-win-no-pay” financing and an adverse-costs indemnity. The suit covers consumers who bought affected sedans or hatchbacks after 1 January 2011.

Plaintiffs allege Toyota breached Australia’s Consumer Law guarantee of acceptable quality, citing a 2022 Toyota bulletin that acknowledged adhesive degradation between primer and base metal. Class members face no out-of-pocket exposure; Omni recoups costs and takes a court-approved commission only from any recovery. Registration is open nationwide, and Omni’s portal details eligibility tests based on VIN build plates and paint codes.

The case exemplifies funders’ deepening appetite for high-volume consumer-product claims. Success here could spur similar “cosmetic defect” suits—particularly in Australia’s active class-action market—further diversifying funders’ portfolios beyond financial-services and securities disputes.

Burford Capital Faces Fresh Argentine Pushback in YPF Turnover Battle

By John Freund |

Argentina’s legal team has fired its latest salvo in the long-running, Burford-backed YPF litigation, lodging two emergency briefs with U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska that seek to halt her 30 June order compelling the country to transfer its 51 percent stake in the oil major to a BNY Mellon escrow within 14 days.

An article in Infobae reports that the Treasury Solicitor’s Office argues immediate compliance would violate Argentina’s hydrocarbon-sovereignty statute, trigger cross-default clauses, and irreversibly strip state control of a company central to the Vaca Muerta shale programme. The briefs also insist the $16.1 billion judgment—won by Petersen Energía and Eton Park after Burford Capital financed their claims—presents “novel questions” on sovereign immunity and extraterritorial asset execution, meriting a stay pending Second Circuit review.

Burford’s creditors countered earlier this week, citing Governor Axel Kicillof’s public remarks as proof of obstruction. Argentina retorted that Kicillof holds no federal brief, seeking to neutralise that leverage while underscoring the U.S. Justice Department’s past reservations about enforcing foreign-sovereign turnovers. Judge Preska is expected to rule on the stay motion within days; absent relief, the share transfer clock runs out on 15 July.

A stay would underscore enforcement risk, even after a blockbuster merits win. Funders will watch Preska's decision, and capital-providers hunting sovereign-risk cases may calibrate pricing accordingly.

Palisade, Accredited Specialty Secure $35 Million Legal Risk Cover

By John Freund |

Specialty managing general underwriter Palisade Insurance Partners has taken a significant step to scale its fast-growing contingent-legal-risk book, striking a delegated-authority agreement with Accredited Specialty Insurance Company. Including the Accredited capacity, Palisade has up to $35 million in coverage for legal risk insurance products. The New York-headquartered MGU can now offer larger wraps for judgment preservation, adverse-appeal and similar exposures—coverages that corporates, private-equity sponsors and law firms increasingly use to de-risk litigation and unlock financing.

An article in Business Insurance reports that the deal provides Palisade's clients with the comfort of carrier balance-sheet strength while allowing the insurer to expand its program portfolio. The capacity tops up Palisade’s existing relationships and arrives at a time when several traditional markets have retrenched from contingent legal risk after absorbing a spate of outsized verdicts, leaving many complex disputes under-served.

Palisade leadership said demand for robust limits has “never been stronger,” driven by M&A transactions that hinge on successful appeals, fund-level financings that need portfolio hedges, and secondary trading of mature judgments. Writing on LinkedIn, Palisade President John McNally stated: "Accredited's partnership expands Palisade's ability to transfer litigation exposures and help facilitate transactional and financing outcomes for its corporate, law firm, investment manager and M&A clients."

The new facility aligns the MGU’s maximum line with those of higher-profile peers and could see Palisade participate in single-event placements that have historically defaulted to the London market. For Accredited, the move diversifies its program roster and positions the insurer to capture premium in a niche with attractive economics—provided underwriting discipline holds.

Omni Bridgeway Maps Recovery Paths for PRC Creditors

By John Freund |

China’s ballooning stock of non-performing loans (NPLs) has long frustrated mainland banks and asset-management companies eager to claw back value from defaulted borrowers scattered across multiple jurisdictions. In its newly released 2025 Report on International Asset Recovery for PRC Financial Creditors, Omni Bridgeway distills the lessons of a growing body of cross-border enforcement actions and sets out a playbook for creditors determined to follow the money.

A paper published by Omni Bridgeway explains that the three-chapter study surveys today’s enforcement landscape, highlights “funded recovery” strategies for domestic institutions, and walks readers through case studies in which Chinese lenders have traced assets into offshore havens and employed Mareva-style injunctions, arbitral award assignments, and insolvency proceedings to compel payment.

The paper highlights how litigation finance can transform the economics of pursuing stubborn debtors. By underwriting investigative costs, securing local counsel, and bridging timing gaps between enforcement wins and cash realisation, funders such as Omni Bridgeway can turn an otherwise write-off-prone claim into a profitable workout.

The report also charts structural shifts reshaping the market: Beijing’s pressure on state banks to clean balance sheets, private-equity appetite for “special situations” paper, and widening acceptance of third-party funding in arbitration hubs from Hong Kong to Singapore. A series of recent matters—ranging from a Guangzhou lender’s successful freeze of UK real estate to a provincial AMC’s recovery of Latin-American mining assets—illustrate the potency of coordinated tracing, injunctive relief, and securitised claims sales.

For the legal-funding bar, the study underscores a powerful, still-underexploited pipeline: hundreds of billions of renminbi in distressed credit looking for capital-efficient enforcement solutions. Whether PRC banks will embrace external funders at scale—and how regulators will view foreign-backed recovery campaigns—remain pivotal questions for 2025 and beyond.

Omni Bridgeway Hails U.S. Budget Bill Win

By John Freund |

Omni Bridgeway has sidestepped a potentially painful tax after President Trump signed the FY-25 Budget Bill without the much-debated levy on legal-finance proceeds. The Australian-listed funder, which bankrolls commercial claims on six continents, had warned that the original 40.8 percent surcharge floated in the Senate Finance Committee would depress case economics and chill cross-border capital flows. Instead, the final bill landed on 4 July with zero mention of legal-finance taxation, handing the industry a regulatory reprieve just as U.S. portfolio commitments hit record highs.

Sharecafe notes that Omni Bridgeway credits a rare coalition of plaintiff-side bar groups, access-to-justice NGOs, and chambers-of-commerce allies for persuading lawmakers to drop the proposal. The company says it will elaborate in its 4Q25 report later this month, but stresses that bipartisan recognition of funding’s public-interest role now mirrors supportive reviews in Australia, the EU and the UK.

For funders, the episode underscores two diverging trends: rising U.S. political scrutiny and an equally vocal defense of the asset class from sophisticated investors. Expect lobbying budgets to climb as Congress circles disclosure and tax issues again in 2026, but also expect money to keep flowing—Omni’s stance suggests confidence that regulatory headwinds can be managed without derailing growth.

Cleary Gottlieb Highlights Importance of CJC’s ‘Light-Touch’ Statute for Funders

By John Freund |

Britain’s Civil Justice Council has recommended sweeping but flexible regulation to stabilise a litigation-funding market rattled by last year’s PACCAR ruling. In a 58-point report, the CJC calls for legislation clarifying that third-party funding deals are not damages-based agreements, erasing the decision’s retroactive cloud over billions in commitments. It favours statutory oversight—potentially by the FCA after a five-year review—covering capital adequacy, anti-money-laundering checks and early disclosure of funding sources, while rejecting hard caps on funder returns.

Cleary Gottlieb highlights the CJC’s view that funding is “an essential means to secure effective access to justice,” particularly for group claims, but concedes defendants need better cost-recovery tools. Notably, the report proposes court discretion to shift funders’ fees onto losing defendants in “exceptional circumstances,” a nod to fairness without endorsing U.S.-style cost-shifting.

If adopted, the blueprint could make London the first G-7 jurisdiction with bespoke statutory rules for funders—offering clarity that may attract capital flight from the EU post-PACCARR—but it also sets a precedent others may copy. Watch for Westminster to kick off consultations after Parliament’s summer recess; timing will be critical as cross-border class actions surge.

Burford Capital Launches US $400 M Senior Notes Offering

By John Freund |

Burford Capital returned to the bond market Monday with a private placement of 144A/Reg S senior notes due 2033, targeting US $400 million in proceeds.

PR Newswire notes that the funds will retire Burford’s 6.125 % 2025 bonds and, if capacity remains, its 5 % 2026 notes. The ten-year paper will be issued through subsidiary Burford Capital Global Finance LLC and guaranteed on a senior unsecured basis by key operating entities. Management framed the deal as a proactive refinancing to extend weighted-average maturity and preserve liquidity for portfolio deployments and enforcement campaigns, including the high-stakes YPF arbitral award.

The launch follows Congress’s decision to drop a proposed 31.8% excise tax on litigation-finance profits—a policy overhang that had muted high-yield issuance earlier this year. Investors will watch pricing closely: spreads tighter than Burford’s existing 2028s would signal renewed confidence in the credit and, by extension, the asset class. If successful, the offering could reopen capital-markets access for midsize funders that paused issuance after 2023’s rate spike. Longer-dated capital supports the industry’s trend toward portfolio and enforcement finance, where returns resemble annuities and appeal to fixed-income allocators seeking diversification.

UK Court Upholds Funders’ LFAs Against Apple, Visa

By John Freund |

A unanimous Court of Appeal has delivered Britain’s litigation-funding industry its most decisive post-PACCAR victory to date, green-lighting the revised financing agreements that underpin multibillion-pound collective actions against Apple, Sony, Visa and Mastercard.

Legal Futures reports that the court rejected arguments claiming a damages cap turns a multiple-based LFA into an illegal damages-based agreement. Writing for the court, Chancellor Sir Julian Flaux held that such caps merely shield class members from excessive returns and do not offend section 58AA of the Courts and Legal Services Act. The judgment restores commercial certainty after the Supreme Court’s 2023 PACCAR decision invalidated percentage-based LFAs and froze dozens of collective actions. Four Competition Appeal Tribunal claims—covering interchange-fee suits and consumer-electronics overcharge allegations—had been stayed pending clarity; they are now expected to restart swiftly.

Practically, the ruling affirms the post-PACCAR template most funders adopted: a defined-multiple return with a protective ceiling expressed as a share of recoveries. Claimant firms may revisit stalled cases once deemed unfundable, while policymakers can pause calls for emergency legislation.

WinJustice: Six Reasons In-House Teams Seek Funding

By John Freund |

Corporate general counsel are increasingly treating litigation finance as a mainstream treasury tool. A new commentary from Abu Dhabi–based funder WinJustice frames third-party capital as a way to convert disputes from cost centres into balance-sheet assets, letting companies pursue high-value claims without raiding R&D budgets or elevating cost-of-capital pressures

An article on LinkedIn sets out six drivers behind that shift. First is financial efficiency: shifting fees and adverse-cost exposure off-balance sheet insulates earnings from litigation volatility. Second, freed-up cash can be redeployed to core business lines, while funder backing materially strengthens settlement leverage. Third-party diligence and industry specialists sharpen strategy, and predictable accounting keeps shareholders and analysts on-side.

Funding also revives meritorious matters that once languished for lack of budget, the piece notes, letting departments engage top-flight counsel, survive discovery battles and finance costly enforcement campaigns. Collectively, these advantages reframe contentious work as a managed investment—an approach that dovetails with the data-driven, ROI-oriented ethos now spreading through corporate legal ops.

WinJustice positions itself as the MENA region’s leading provider of such capital. Operating from the Abu Dhabi Global Market, it offers non-recourse funding for attorney fees, expert witnesses, ADR deposits and post-judgment enforcement, backed by rigorous due diligence that—as the firm puts it—creates “virtuous loops of funding, access to justice and efficient conflict resolution."

Litigation Funders Win Tax Reprieve

By John Freund |

Congressional negotiators shocked the legal-funding world by deleting, at the eleventh hour, a punitive tax on litigation-finance proceeds that had sailed through committee only weeks earlier.

An article in Law360 captures the collective sigh of relief: investment managers told the outlet that a 41 percent flat levy “would have erased double-digit IRRs overnight,” freezing new deals and stalling case portfolios mid-stream. Yet relief was tempered by unease. Lobbyists highlighted Biden-era IRS notices that already scrutinize fund structures, warning that future reconciliation cycles could revive similar measures under the banner of closing “loopholes.”

The scuttled clause, championed by Sen. Thom Tillis, aimed squarely at non-recourse funding agreements—lumping them with payday loans despite fundamental differences in risk and consumer exposure. Industry advocacy groups argued the tax would simply throttle access to counsel for under-capitalized plaintiffs, while doing little to curb perceived abuses.

For now, the world’s largest funders are pivoting to opportunity: several managers signaled press outreach emphasizing their role in financing meritorious claims after the Senate’s tacit endorsement. But as White House and Senate drafters restart budget talks this autumn, funders may find themselves again in fiscal cross-hairs—prompting fresh advocacy campaigns around transparency, consumer protection, and economic impact.

Jefferies Lines Up Capital for LA Wildfire Mass Torts

By John Freund |

As Southern California tallies the ruinous cost of this year’s Eaton and Palisades fires, Wall Street’s appetite for mass-tort risk is blazing. Bloomberg reporters tell Carrier Management that investment bank Jefferies Financial Group and rival Oppenheimer are courting plaintiffs’ firms with eight-figure credit lines to bankroll suits against Edison International and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power.

An article in Carrier Management details solicitation emails in which brokers tout double-digit interest returns for lenders willing to absorb the high-stakes cost of expert testimony, aerial burn-mapping, and client acquisition. Litigation finance specialists already active in mass torts are circling as well, drawn to damages estimates topping $10 billion.

The report quotes Wake Forest law professor Samir Parikh, who calls wildfire finance litigation “the next evolution” of an industry that has made headlines backing opioids and talc claims. For funders, California wildfires offer scale, sympathetic plaintiffs and publicly traded utilities with insurance towers. Yet the capital churn also revives criticism from insurers that contend aggressive financing fuels social inflation. Skyward Specialty’s CEO recently vowed to shun counterparties dabbling in TPLF—a stance that could spread if wildfire verdicts balloon.

Whether Jefferies-style syndications become mainstream will hinge on judicial management of mass-tort inventories and on potential legislative moves to mandate financing disclosures in state courts. Either way, the embers of this year’s fires may ignite a new, high-profile proving ground for Wall Street’s legal-asset ambitions.

Bench Walk to Recoup First Cut of Lupaka’s $65M Peru Award

By John Freund |

Canadian miner Lupaka Gold has landed the sort of out-of-the-blue windfall that keeps arbitration funders in business. An ICSID tribunal has ordered the Republic of Peru to pay the TSX-V-listed junior roughly $65 million—the full compensation Lupaka sought over the 2018 shuttering of its Invicta gold project, plus costs and compound interest dating back nearly six years.

A press release in GlobeNewswire states that Lupaka will not be the first to collect the proceeds. Under its non-recourse financing agreement, the initial distributions flow to Bench Walk Advisors, the New York- and London-based funder that bankrolled the treaty claim and fronted more than US $4 million in arbitration costs. Only after Bench Walk is made whole—and receives its agreed return—will the miner’s shareholders see any cash.

The award exemplifies how litigation finance is reshaping investor-state disputes. Bench Walk assumed the risk that Peru might prevail or drag the process out indefinitely; in exchange it now stands to crystalise a sizeable, near-term return once enforcement begins. Lupaka’s management, for its part, concedes that “a few more hoops” remain before Peru’s treasury wires the money, but the tribunal’s merits ruling removes the biggest hurdle.

The case reinforces third-party funding’s strategic utility for smaller resource companies facing sovereign interference—especially in Latin America’s mining belt, where political risk remains acute. Funders will parse the award’s interest mechanics as a template for quantifying damages over protracted timelines. More broadly, the result helps validate Bench Walk’s aggressive expansion into treaty arbitration and may spur peers to chase similar high-beta opportunities, even as governments and the UN-backed ICSID reform process debate tighter disclosure around funding arrangements.