The Legal-Tech Act has recently been passed in Germany and will take effect in October of this year. Essentially, it allows attorneys more flexibility with regard to contingency agreements. This act is the opening move in a series of planned reforms to Germany’s legal service market.
Longford Capital Management, LP today announced that it has entered into a $50 million funding agreement with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP to provide equity capital to fund attorneys’ fees and litigation costs, and to monetize the value of meritorious legal claims for Willkie’s clients involved in commercial litigation cases handled by lawyers based in Willkie’s Chicago office.
Is post-pandemic global inflation a certainty? Probably not. But it’s worth noting that pandemic alleviation spending, quantitative easing by the Fed, and a sizable budget deficit are creating similar conditions to the last large inflation peak—way back in 1947. There are other factors to consider, some of which are difficult to predict. Consumers are excited to spend, travel, and do all of the things the pandemic prevented them from doing. What does that mean for litigation funding?
Do both sides of a case need to know when third parties have an interest in the outcome of their case? David Levitt of Hinshaw & Culbertson says yes. He has proposed changing the rules in the District of New Jersey to require plaintiffs and defendants alike to disclose information about TPLF agreements.
Targeting the oft-maligned Real-Time Bidding (RTB), the Irish Council for Civil Liberties is taking IAB Tech Labs to court. The focus is on consumer privacy. This is a potentially far-reaching case as it addresses tactics used by Twitter, Amazon, Google, and Facebook among others.
As Litigation Finance grows in popularity, more new players are entering the playing field. Some fields, like IP litigation, are considered especially lucrative and are a popular focus for upstart funders. However, success in this landscape is far from a sure thing.
More people than ever now understand the broad strokes of what Litigation Finance is and what it can offer. Investors fund cases through funding entities that are then owed a share of any recovery or award in the case. Litigation funding is non-recourse, so funders can take a higher percentage in exchange for the enhanced risk.
A recent order in a case between Laser Trust and CFL Financing is turning heads. The English High Court has made three cost orders against CFL. The court determined that the funder exerted an excessive amount of control over the case it had funded.
As the number of jurisdictions embracing litigation funding grows, bar associations are following suit. Lawyers utilizing third-party funding as an option for clients would do well to note guidance offered by the state bar association on funding agreements and professional ethics obligations. While more state bars are expected to lend their opinions on the practice, New York and California have their own approaches to litigation funding.
Litigation funding has a new landscape to conquer—cryptocurrency. Liti Capital is the first legal funding company to tokenize shares. This creates an equity token that is asset-backed—which is unusual in blockchain. Using tokens allows a wider swath of investors to participate, as the entry threshold is lowered.
Are insolvency claims about to become more expensive and time-consuming to pursue? Some have suggested yes, after a ruling in Manolete Partners Plc v Hayward and Barrett Holdings Ltd 2021. It’s said that the recent ruling impacts those who assign insolvency claims, as well as insolvency practitioners themselves, by increasing the cost of claims, and may require two separate sets of proceedings regarding the same set of facts. Why?
As parts of the world seek out post-COVID normalcy, a predicted spike of legal claims is en route. Insolvencies are increasing, as are claims of fraud, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty. With that in mind, a group of practitioners who deal in fraud, insolvency, and enforcement held the Asset Recovery Americas Conference—focusing on enforcement law in Latin America and the United States.
Last month, the Private Funding of Legal Service Act 2020 (AKA the Act) became law. The Act brings codification to the rules governing the practice of third-party litigation funding—which had been addressed on a case-by-case basis previously. Like many jurisdictions, champerty and maintenance laws had to be abolished before litigation funding could be supported by the law. This was a key element of the Act.
Investments made by Arkansas’s Teacher Retirement Systems increased by a staggering $783 million. This ranks the fund in the top 5% of public pension funds in America. This comes after last year’s investments fell to only $15.1 billion as of the beginning of COVID shutdowns.
When Alexander Tugushev went to London in 2018, he expected to sue Magnus Roth and his former business partners for a cut of Russian fishing group, Norebo. The claim revolved around a one-third share based on informal verbal agreements made long before the founding of Norebo.
A potential class action against Tyro Payments Limited is being investigated by Bannister Law Class Actions. Tyro is Australia’s largest non-bank provider of Point of Sale Electronic Fund Transfer services. Service outages in January of this year impacted hundreds of businesses—causing loss of sales revenue, service fees that provided poor or no service, customer dissatisfaction, and general damage to businesses as they sought to compensate for Tyro’s outages.
Liquidators of Nuoxi Capital and Kunzhi Ltd are presently engaged in negotiations with potential litigation funders. Multiple sources claim that it will be very expensive to recover various inter-company claims—not to mention the need for a Beijing court to accept a previous keepwell ruling originating in Hong Kong.
Law firm King & Spaulding, along with partners Craig Miles and Reginald Smith, are being sued by former client, Trinh Vinh Binh. The firm is accused of failing to follow client instructions, and of ‘erroneous allocation’ of funds. Claims include breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and negligence, as Binh seeks fee forfeiture in addition to damages.
Shine Lawyers is seeking claimants for a newly launched class action on behalf of indigenous Australians whose wages were stolen. Wage control legislation led to wages being withheld in the period between the late 1800s and the early 1970s. This may include farmworkers, domestic staffers, laborers, stockmen, and others.
On Tuesday, June 15th, 6pm EST, Litigation Finance Journal is hosting a roundtable discussion on the evolution of Litigation Finance in Australia. Topics will include the increasing threat of industry regulation, the Joint Parliamentary Committee’s perspective on litigation funding and class actions, how Australia may serve as a blueprint of sorts for global jurisdictions including the US, UK and EU, and the structural and cultural differences inherent to running a litigation funding firm in Australia.
As more countries allow the use of third-party funding, more courts are tasked with clarifying how the practice should work with existing law. In Austria, questions regarding ‘pacta de quo-ta litis’ arose with regard to Austrian Civil Code section 879, and section 16 of the Austrian Attorney’s Code.
