Stay on top of updates and developments around key cases across various global jurisdictions.

Former shareholders of STADA Arzneimittel AG who tendered their Stada shares as part of the takeover offer by Nidda Healthcare Holding AG in August or September 2017 are entitled to an additional payment of €8.15 per share. This was decided by the Federal Court of Justice in May 2023. Since Nidda Healthcare Holding AG refuses to make a voluntary additional payment to all former STADA shareholders, SdK Schutzgemeinschaft der Kapitalanleger e.V. is offering litigation financing for a legal claim without any cost risk to the affected former STADA shareholders.

On July 19, 2017, Nidda Healthcare Holding AG, a joint venture of the international financial investors Bain Capital and Cinven Partners, submitted a voluntary public takeover offer to the shareholders of STADA Arzneimittel AG to acquire their shares at a price of € 66.25 per share. Within the acceptance period (until the end of August 16, 2017), the bidder’s offer was accepted by 63.76 % of STADA shareholders and within a further acceptance period (until September 1, 2017) by a further 0.11 % of STADA shareholders. The bidder thus achieved a tender volume, including shares held by STADA, of approx. 63.87 % of STADA’s share capital and voting rights. 

On August 30, 2017, a shareholder holding 8,265,142 shares (13.26 % of the shares and voting rights) agreed to a domination and profit and loss transfer agreement between Nidda Healthcare and STADA if the amount of the compensation under the domination and profit and loss transfer agreement is at least EUR 74.40 per STADA share. Several former shareholders of STADA, who had accepted the lower takeover offer, filed a lawsuit against the bidder demanding the difference between the offer price and the compensation under the domination and profit and loss transfer agreement of EUR 74.40. 

In two identical judgments dated 23 May 2023 (case no. II ZR 219/21 and II ZR 220/21), the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled in favor of two plaintiffs pursuant to sections 31 (5) and (6) WpÜG, referring to the principles of the so-called Celesio case law. In principle, all former shareholders of Stada AG who had initially exchanged their regular shares for the securities tendered for sale with ISIN DE000A2GS5A4 or for securities subsequently tendered for sale with ISIN DE000A2GS5B2 and had subsequently tendered these in the takeover offer are entitled for the payment of the difference. 

Following a request of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority („BaFin“), the Bidder published a corresponding notice in the Federal Gazette, but pointed out that, in its view, any payment claims by former shareholders could be based on the defense of the statute of limitations. In the opinion of the Bidder, the statute of limitations generally began at the latest at the end of 2017. However, this is incorrect. The claims of the former shareholders of STADA are not yet time-barred: This is because after the courts of the 1st and 2nd instance had still rejected the claim for subsequent payment, only the BGH confirmed this claim for additional payment. The claim for additional payment is therefore not yet time-barred.

The SdK is offering affected former STADA shareholders legal cost financing to enforce their claims for additional payment. The claims can thus be enforced without any cost risk. The SdK, as the financier of the legal costs, assumes all costs of the legal proceedings in return for a profit participation of 30% of the proceeds in the event of success. For more information please contact us at info@sdk.org.The SdK will be happy to answer any questions from its affected members by e-mail at info@sdk.org or by telephone on +49 89 / 2020846-0.

The ownership or funding of law firms by litigation funders continues to be a hot topic in the world of legal funding, with models such as alternative business structures (ABS) gaining momentum in places like Arizona. However, a complaint filed by a client in Delaware reveals a falling out due to the reverse funding model, where a law firm maintained an ownership stake in the funder.

Reporting by Bloomberg Law covers a new lawsuit brought against Burford German Funding (BGF), an affiliate of Burford Capital, by a client who claims that the funder failed to disclose the fact that BGF was partly owned by the same law firm it nominated to lead the client’s antitrust cases. Financialright Claims GMBH (FRC) alleges that when it negotiated the funding agreement with BGF for its antitrust litigation against the trucks cartel, it had no knowledge “that Hausfeld  was  also  a  part  owner  of  BGF  through  an  entity  called German Litigation Solutions LLC (“GLS”) or that one of the lead German partners at Hausfeld responsible for the firm’s representation of FRC had a personal stake.”

The complaint, filed by FRC in the Delaware Superior Court, explains that as Hausfeld is part-owner of BGF, and the funding agreement “provides for a share of FRC’s recoveries in the Trucks Litigations to flow to FRC’s lawyers”, this constitutes a contingency fee arrangement which are illegal under German law.  FRC had filed a lawsuit against Hausfeld in a German court and then applied for discovery from BGF, Burford and GLS in the Delaware District Court, which was followed by an assertion by these parties that the application for discovery “is subject to mandatory arbitration” under the terms of the funding agreement.

FRC argues that “as  a  direct  result  of  BGF’s  fraud  on  FRC,  FRC  did  agree  to  the Arbitration Agreement that—according to BGF—subsumes disputes between FRC and GLS.” However, FRC claims that it “would  never  have  agreed  to  an  arbitration  clause  requiring  it  to arbitrate claims against Hausfeld”, were it not for the concealment of Hausfeld’s ownership stake in BGF. FRC is therefore asking the Superior Court to declare that “BGF fraudulently induced  FRC  into  agreeing  to  the  Arbitration  Agreement”, and that the agreement should be declared both invalid and unenforceable.

Lisa Sharrow, spokesperson at Hausfeld LLP, provided the following statement:  “The US-based Hausfeld LLP and the UK-based Hausfeld & Co LLP hold indirect economic minority interests in Burford German Funding. These are separate legal entities from Hausfeld Rechtsanwälte LLP that do not practice law in Germany. Burford German Funding was of course developed and set up in a way that was fully compliant with all relevant regulations.”

David Helfenbein, spokesperson at Burford, also provided a response to Bloomberg via email: “There is a dispute in Germany between a client Burford has funded and its lawyers. Burford is not a party to that dispute and its outcome has no impact on us. This Delaware proceeding is a third-party discovery request to Burford for material for the German litigation, which Burford believes should be adjudicated in arbitration and not in the Delaware courts.”

The full complaint filed by FRC can be read here.

Altroconsumo and VW Group have reached a ground-breaking agreement, providing over 50 million euro relief to over 60,000 Italian consumers affected by the emissions fraud scandal. Celebrating this major win for Italian consumers, Euroconsumers calls on Volkswagen to now also compensate Dieselgate victims in the other Euroconsumers countries. 

The settlement reached by Altroconsumo, arising from a Euroconsumers coordinated class action which commenced in 2015 ensures that Volkswagen will allocate over 50 million euros in compensation. Eligible participants stand to receive payments of up to 1100 euros per individual owner.

This brings an end to an eight year long legal battle that Altroconsumo together with Euroconsumers has been fiercefully fighting for Italian consumers and marks a significant milestone in seeking justice for those impacted by the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal.

“We extend our massive congratulations to Altroconsumo for reaching this major settlement in favor of the Italian Dieselgate victims. Finally, they will receive the justice and compensation they deserve. This milestone underscores the importance of upholding consumer rights and the accountability of big market players when these rights are ignored, something Euroconsumers and all its national organisations will continue to do together with even more intensity under the new Representative Actions Directive” – Marco Scialdone, Head Litigation and Academic Outreach Euroconsumers

Together with Altroconsumo in Italy, Euroconsumers also initiated Dieselgate class actions against the Volkswagen-group in Belgium, Spain and Portugal. While the circumstances are shared, the outcomes have been far from consistent.

“Euroconsumers was the first European consumer cluster to launch collective actions against Volkswagen to secure redress and compensation for all affected by the emissions scandal in its member countries. After 8 years of relentless pursuit, we urge the VW group to finally come through for all of them and give all of them the compensation they rightfully deserve. All Dieselgate victims are equal and should be treated with equal respect.” – Els Bruggeman, Head Policy and Enforcement Euroconsumers

Consumer protection is nothing without enforcement and so Euroconsumers and its organisations will continue to lead important class actions which benefit consumers all across the single market. 

Read the full Altroconsumo press release here.

About Euroconsumers 

Gathering five national consumer organisations and giving voice to a total of more than 1,5 million people in Italy, Belgium, Spain, Portugal and Brazil, Euroconsumers is the world’s leading consumer cluster in innovative information, personalised services and the defence of consumer rights. Our European member organisations are part of the umbrella network of BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation. Together we advocate for EU policies that benefit consumers in their daily lives.

The following is a contributed piece by Nicole Clark, CEO and co-founder of Trellis. Trellis is pleased to offer LFJ members a complimentary 2 week free trial to its state trial court database.  Click here to access it today. 

Nobody knows exactly what happened. Each party has their own account of the events that unfolded. This, however, is what we do know. Jalapeno peppers were everywhere. Nestled within the rolling hills of Ventura County in Southern California, Underwood Ranches, a family farm operated by Craig Underwood, had been growing the fruit for the past three decades, serving as the sole supplier for Huy Fong Foods, the company responsible for sriracha. Business boomed. Both companies expanded. The world was their oyster.

Then, in 2016, the paradise they built crumbled. Huy Fong Foods filed a lawsuit against Underwood Ranches, accusing the farm of overcharging for growing costs. In response, Underwood Ranches countersued, claiming breach of contract and financial loss. After a three week trial, a jury for the Ventura County Superior Court found merit with both claims, awarding Huy Fong Foods $1.45 million and Underwood Ranches $23.3 million. Huy Fong Foods appealed the verdict, and, unable to claim its award, Underwood Ranches stood on the brink of financial collapse, left without the funds needed to pay its suppliers or its workers.

The Flames of Uncertainty

“The benefit you get from litigation is that litigation doesn’t fluctuate the same way that the markets do,” explains Christopher Bogart of Burford Capital. The financial service company had been called by the attorneys of Underwood Ranches to assist the farm, providing it with $4 million in non-recourse financing—enough to carry it through the appeal process. Still, according to Bogart, the comparative stability of litigation doesn’t eliminate the risks of financing a case like this. The risks, and the costs, can be big.

It’s easy to overlook the uncertainties embedded within the legal system. After all, this is a system that relies on precedents, a situation which suggests that the outcome of any future case should reflect that which came before. As Gail Gottehrer, an emerging technologies attorney based in New York City, remarks, “[i]f your case is similar and has similar facts to another case, the results shouldn’t be too surprising.” The problem, however, is that the results often are surprising. Judges aren’t computers. Neither are juries. They are people, filled with their own beliefs and their own experiences, both of which shape how they interpret laws, apply facts, and consider arguments.

Over the years, attorneys have developed their own rudimentary tools for grappling with this uncertainty. These rudimentary tools have now morphed into powerful machine learning technologies, packed with the ability to comb through millions of state trial court records in order to analyze court dockets, judicial rulings, and verdict data in ways that have rendered civil litigation more transparent and more predictable. But what does the story of sriracha mean for litigation funding teams? How can litigation finance companies use state trial court records to navigate uncertain legal terrains, not just for cases at the end of their lifecycle, but also for those that have only just begun?

Harvesting the Seeds

It could start with a ping. That’s just one way litigation funding companies can tap into new business opportunities. By registering for alerts with a legal analytics platform, litigation funding teams no longer need to source leads through collaborating attorneys. Alerts afford litigation funders with their own bird’s-eye view of the litigation landscape as it unfolds in real-time. These systems can notify users whenever a new case has been filed against a particular company, a new entry has been added to a case docket, or a new ruling has been issued on a legal claim.

To help manage the scale—and the urgency—of this reality, litigation funding teams can also turn to a different tool: the daily filings report. A daily filings report is a spreadsheet that contains detailed coverage of all new civil actions filed in a specific jurisdiction. Each report is emailed to subscribers every morning and includes all case data (i.e., judge, party, counsel, practice area) and metadata (i.e., case summary) as well as direct links to the docket and the complaint. With reliable access to daily filings reports, litigation funders can be the first to know about any new cases filed within a particular jurisdiction, pinpointing the most lucrative cases before anyone else.

Heat Indexing

What happens, then, when a litigation funding team finds a potential case? The daily filings report lets funders access the complaint within seconds, gathering all of the information they need to perform a Google-like search through the millions of state trial court records that have been curated by their preferred legal analytics provider. The goal? To quickly learn more about the litigation history of the parties that are named in the complaint (What other cases does Underwood Ranches have pending? What practice areas drain its budget? Who is its primary outside counsel?) and the law firm that has chosen to represent them (How experienced is Ferguson Case Orr Paterson with this jurisdiction, practice area, opposing counsel? Who are its typical clients? How were those cases resolved?).

The due diligence process deepens with a look at the merits of the case. Here, a litigation funding team can use legal analytics to follow the logics of conventional legal research. With access to a searchable database of prior decisional law, funders can conduct element-focused analyses of each asserted cause of action in the case, identifying the ways in which judges in the county have ruled on similar actions in the past. And, if a judge has already been assigned to the case, these funders can take their due diligence even further, turning their eyes to a judge analytics dashboard—an interactive interface developed by legal analytics platforms to highlight the patterns, the inclinations, and the past experiences of specific judicial officers.

Consider the dispute between Underwood Ranches and Huy Fong Foods, a case presided over by the Hon. Henry J. Walsh. According to Trellis, the average case length in Ventura County is 945 days. Knowing where Walsh sits in relation to this average, as well as the number of cases he has on deck, could help a litigation funder anticipate the likely pace of a case, a key piece of information to have when designing different investment portfolios. But what about juries? How might a jury respond to a breach of contract case in California? Legal analytics platforms like Trellis have also integrated verdict data into their systems, amending their archives of state trial court records to also include information related to case outcomes and settlement awards. A litigation funder conducting due diligence on Underwood Ranches could quickly pull a random sample of agricultural-related breach of contract claims in California, identifying the value range of verdict and settlement amounts (median: $5,650,798; average $9,331,712) and the frequency of plaintiff verdicts (62.5 percent). Litigation funders no longer need to wonder how much a case might be worth. The numbers are there.

The Spiciest Pepper

“There is idiosyncratic risk in the court system that can’t be anticipated,” begins Eva Shang, the co-founder of Legalist. It is widely known that predicting the outcome of litigation can be a risky business. Yet, there is something to be said about the magic of big numbers. Whenever we feed our computers the (meta)data of thousands of cases, deviations get smoothed out and patterns begin to emerge. By shifting our thinking away from stories about individual lawsuits, we can redirect our attention towards that which is frequent, recurrent, predictable. As a case study, the story of sriracha opens the door to a more predictable world, a world where the outcomes of litigation don’t have to fluctuate the way that markets do, not because the courtroom is inherently less uncertain than a stock exchange, but because the magic of big numbers finds increasingly novel ways to make it that way.

By Nicole Clark

CEO and co-founder of Trellis | Business litigation and labor and employment attorney

Trellis is an AI-powered legal research and analytics platform that gives state court litigators a competitive advantage by making trial court rulings searchable, and providing insights into the patterns and tendencies of your opposing counsel, and your state court judges.

Trellis is pleased to offer LFJ members a complimentary 2 week free trial to its state trial court database.  Click here to access it today.