Stay on top of regulatory updates taking place throughout various jurisdictions across the globe.

The following article was contributed by Tom Webster, Chief Commercial Officer at Sentry Funding.

A Court of Appeal ruling last week is a very positive development for the many consumers currently seeking justice after discovering they were charged commissions that they were not properly told about when they took out motor finance.

With a large number of such claims being brought in the County Courts, the Court of Appeal heard three cases jointly in order to deal with some key issues that commonly arise.

In Johnson v Firstrand Bank Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 1282, Wrench v Firstrand Bank Ltd and Hopcraft v Close Brothers, the Court of Appeal foundin favour of all three claimants, allowing their appeals.

The cases concerned the common scenario in which a dealer asks the consumer if they want finance; and if so, the dealer gathers their financial details and takes this information to a lender or panel of lenders.

The dealer then presents the finance offer to the consumer on the basis that they have selected an offer that is competitive and suitable. If the consumer accepts it, the dealer sells the car to the lender, and the lender enters into a credit agreement with the consumer.

The consumer will be aware of the price for the car, the sum of any downpayment, the rate of interest on the loan element of the arrangement, and how much they will have to pay the lender in instalments over the period of the credit agreement. They would expect the dealer to make a profit on the sale of the car. But – at least until the Financial Conduct Authority introduced new rules with effect from 28 January 2021 – the consumer might be surprised to discover that the dealer who arranged the finance on their behalf also received a commission from the lender for introducing the business to them; which was financed by the interest charged under the credit agreement.

In this situation, the dealer is essentially fulfilling two different commercial roles – a seller of cars, and also a credit broker – in what the consumer is likely to see as a single transaction. The commission is paid in a side arrangement between lender and dealer, to which the consumer is not party. Sometimes there might be some reference to that arrangement in the body of the credit agreement, in the lender’s standard terms and conditions, or in one of the other documents presented to the consumer. But even if there is, and even if the consumer were to read the small print, it would not necessarily reveal the full details – including the amount of the commission and how it is calculated.

Turning specifically to the three cases before the Court of Appeal, in one of these, Hopcraft, there was no dispute that the commission was kept secret from the claimant. In the other two, Wrench and Johnson, the claimant did not know and was not told that a commission was to be paid. However, the lender’s standard terms and conditions referred to the fact that ‘a commission may be payable by us [ie. the lender] to the broker who introduced the transaction to us.’

In Johnson alone, the dealer / broker supplied the claimant with a document called ‘Suitability Document Proposed for Mr Marcus Johnson’, which he signed. This said, near the beginning, ‘…we may receive a commission from the product provider’.

Each of the claimants brought proceedings in the County Court against the defendant lenders seeking, among other things, the return of the commission paid to the credit brokers. All three claims failed in the County Courts, but in March this year, Birss LJ accepted their transfer up to the Court of Appeal, directing that the three appeals should be heard together – and acknowledging that a large number of such claims were coming through the County Court, and an authoritative ruling on the issues was needed.

After considering the issues in detail, the Court of Appeal allowed all three appeals. It found the dealers were also acting as credit brokers and owed a ‘disinterested duty’ to the claimants, as well as a fiduciary one. The court found a conflict of interest, and no informed consumer consent to the receipt of the commission, in all three cases. But it held that that in itself was not enough to make the lender a primary wrongdoer. For this, the commission must be secret. If there is partial disclosure that suffices to negate secrecy, the lender can only be held liable in equity as an accessory to the broker’s breach of fiduciary duty.

The appeal court found there was no disclosure in Hopcraft, and insufficient disclosure in Wrench to negate secrecy. The payment of the commission in those cases was secret, and so the lenders were liable as primary wrongdoers. In Johnson, the appeal court heldthat the lenders were liable as accessories for procuring the brokers’ breach of fiduciary duty by making the commission payment.

This ruling will prove hugely significant to the large number of similar claims currently being brought in the lower courts; and Sentry Funding is supporting many cases in which consumers were not aware of the commissions they were being charged when they bought a car on finance.

We can now expect many more such claims to start progressing through the County Courts.

The International Legal Finance Association (ILFA), the global voice of commercial legal finance, has welcomed the findings of the newly published European Law Institute (ELI) report ‘Principles governing the third-party funding of litigation’. 

The report, authored by UK High Court Judge Dame Sarah Cockerill and Professor Susanne Augenhofer, is the product of more than two years of investigative work to develop principles and guidance for the TPLF market, and represents a new, independent contribution to the legitimate and effective use of TPLF. 

Following the publication of the report, Neil Purslow, Chairman of the Executive Committee of ILFA, commented:

‘This new report, authored by seasoned legal observers, recognises that commercial legal finance increases access to justice for European businesses and consumers and provides ‘vital improvement in access to justice’ (pg.19) when made available. Contrary to the repeated claims of big business, funding helps level the playing field for those exercising their rights against multinationals with almost unlimited resources’. 

The report also cautions against imposing new regulations on the TPLF market. Instead, it advances a ‘complementary approach’ involving guidance to funders on issues to be taken into account before entering into a TPLF agreement, together with publishing a new Appendix drawing together the recommended minimum content of a funding agreement.

Purslow commented: 

‘ILFA agrees with the report’s conclusion that proscriptive one-size-fits-all regulation isn’t appropriate for a sector like ours. It risks funders ceasing to offer funding, inevitably leading to what the authors rightly identify as ‘serious access to justice issues’.’

The full report from ELI can be read online here. 

About ILFA

The International Legal Finance Association (ILFA) represents the global commercial legal finance community, and its mission is to engage, educate and influence legislative, regulatory and judicial landscapes as the global voice of the commercial legal finance industry. It is the only global association of commercial legal finance companies and is an independent, non-profit trade association promoting the highest standards of operation and service for the commercial legal finance sector. ILFA has local chapter representation around the world. For more information, visit www.ilfa.com and like us on LinkedIn and X @ILFA_Official. 

About ELI 

The European Law Institute (ELI) is an independent non-profit organisation established to initiate, conduct and facilitate research, make recommendations and provide practical guidance in the field of European legal development. The ELI secretariat is hosted by the University of Vienna, Austria.

The report team was led by Susanne Augenhofer (Professor of Law, Austria), Dame Sara Cockerill (High Court Judge, UK), and Henrik Rothe (Professor of Law, Denmark) (until July 2022). 

With federal lawmakers following in the wake of some state legislatures in introducing draft legislation to impose new regulations on litigation funding, it is perhaps no surprise that the US judiciary has now seen fit to take a more proactive approach in examining the role of third-party legal funding in the country.

An article in Reuters covers the news that the U.S. Judicial Conference’s Advisory Committee on Civil Rules agreed last week to begin a study into litigation finance, to ascertain whether a federal rule governing disclosure of third-party funding was necessary. The decision followed a panel meeting last Thursday in Washington, D.C., and notably comes shortly after over 100 companies signed a letter calling on the judiciary to introduce greater transparency measures for litigation funding. 

The chair of the Advisory Committee, U.S. District Judge Robin Rosenberg, said that the debate over third-party legal funding “is an important issue” and that it “is not going away.” Following the committee’s decision, a subcommittee will be created to study the issue but as the Reuters article highlights, this does not provide a timeline on when, or even if, a new rule governing disclosure would be introduced. U.S. District Judge John Bates, chair of the Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure, seemed to make a distinction between the “theoretical problem” that litigation finance could pose, and the study’s purpose to uncover whether there were “actual problems”.

In response to the committee’s decision, Page Faulk, senior vice president of legal reform initiatives at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform, called on the judiciary “to move forward swiftly in adopting mandatory disclosure requirements.” In contrast, the International Legal Finance Association (ILFA) said that it welcomed “the opportunity to be a part of the conversation to demonstrate how legal finance is a valuable part of the legal economy and has not resulted in any of the negative outcomes that the U.S. Chamber has cut from whole cloth.”

In the most significant demonstration of concern for secretive third-party litigation funding (TPLF) to date, 124 companies, including industry leaders in healthcare, technology, financial services, insurance, energy, transportation, automotive and other sectors today sent a letter to the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules urging creation of a new rule that would require a uniform process for the disclosure of TPLF in federal cases nationwide. The Advisory Committee on Civil Rules will meet on October 10 and plans to discuss whether to move ahead with the development of a new rule addressing TPLF.

The letter, organized by Lawyers for Civil Justice (LCJ), comes at a time when TPLF has grown into a 15 billion dollar industry and invests funding in an increasing number of cases which, in turn, has triggered a growing number of requests from litigants asking courts to order the disclosure of funding agreements in their cases. The letter contends that courts are responding to these requests with a “variety of approaches and inconsistent practices [that] is creating a fragmented and incoherent procedural landscape in the federal courts.” It states that a rule is “particularly needed to supersede the misplaced reliance on ex parte conversations; ex parte communications are strongly disfavored by the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges because they are both ineffective in educating courts and highly unfair to the parties who are excluded.”

Reflecting the growing concern with undisclosed TPLF and its impact on the justice system, LCJ and the Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) submitted a separate detailed comment letter to the Advisory Committee that also advocates for a “simple and predictable rule for TPLF disclosure.”

Alex Dahl, LCJ’s General Counsel said: “The Advisory Committee should propose a straightforward, uniform rule for TPLF disclosure. Absent such a rule, the continued uncertainty and court-endorsed secrecy of non-party funding will further unfairly skew federal civil litigation. The support from 124 companies reflects both the importance of a uniform disclosure rule and the urgent need for action.”

The corporate letter advances a number of additional reasons why TPLF disclosure is needed in federal courts:

Control: The letter argues that parties “cannot make informed decisions without knowing the stakeholders who control the litigation… and cannot understand the control features of a TPLF agreement without reading the agreement.” While many funding agreements state that the funder does not control the litigation strategy, companies are increasingly concerned that they use their growing financial leverage to exercise improper influence.

Procedural safeguards: The companies maintain that the safeguards embodied in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) cannot work without disclosure of TPLF.  One example is that courts and parties today are largely unaware of and unable to address conflicts between witnesses, the court, and parties on the one hand, and non-parties on the other, when these funding agreements and the financial interests behind them remain largely secret.

Appraisal of the case: Finally, the letter reasons that the FRCP already require the disclosure of corporate insurance policies which the Advisory Committee explained in 1970 “will enable counsel for both sides to make the same realistic appraisal of the case, so that settlement and litigation strategy are based on knowledge and not speculation.” The companies maintain that this very same logic should also require the disclosure of TPLF given its growing role and impact on federal civil litigation.

Besides the corporate letter and joint comment, LCJ is intensifying its efforts to rally companies and practitioners to Ask About TPLF in their cases, and to press for a uniform federal rule to require disclosure. LCJ will be launching a new Ask About TPLF website that will serve as a hub for its new campaign later this month.

The following is a contributed piece by Tom Webster, Chief Commercial Officer at Sentry Funding.

An EU stakeholder survey is gathering practical information on the operation of third-party funding across the European Union. The study, ‘Mapping Third Party Litigation Funding (TPLF) in the European Union’, was given an extended deadline of 3 September 2024.

Conducted by Civic Consulting and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), the research will help the European Commission analyse the legal framework and practical operation of litigation funding in the EU and make policy decisions in the area.

The survey seeks views from stakeholders with experience of third-party funding, including funders, lawyers, consumer organisations, other businesses, public authorities, members of the judiciary and others. As well as questions seeking to discover the extent of funding activity in each EU jurisdiction and typical levels of investment, it also asks for views on both positive and negative effects of litigation funding.

In relation to positive effects, the survey asks a number of questions including whether respondents have observed that current litigation funding practices lead to better access to the courts for parties who could not litigate without funding; whether there is a deterrent effect on companies that serve consumer markets due to the threat of mass claims relating to unsafe products or unfair practices; and whether respondents have seen a filtering effect on claims as those with a low chance of success will not be funded.

In relation to negative effects, questions include whether respondents have observed conflicts of interest; undue influence on decisions such as settlements and appeals; and the funding of frivolous claims.

The EU survey is just one of a number of projects currently examining the litigation funding sector. Also focusing on the EU market, the European Law Institute is undertaking a substantial research project with the aim of establishing a set of principles to identify the issues that should be taken into account when entering into litigation funding agreements.

Meanwhile in the UK, the Legal Services Board recently published a report on litigation funding in England and Wales (https://legalservicesboard.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/A-review-of-litigation-funding.pdf), and the Civil Justice Council has embarked on a wide-reaching review of the sector (https://www.judiciary.uk/related-offices-and-bodies/advisory-bodies/cjc/current-work/third-party-funding/) which will include recommendations in relation to the future regulation of the industry.

The following is a contributed piece by Ana Carolina Salomão, Leila Zoe-Mezoughi, Micaela Ossio Maguiña and Sarah Voulaz, of Pogust Goodhead.

This article follows our previous publication dated 10 October 2023 regarding the Supreme Court ruling in PACCAR[1] on third-party litigation funding agreements which, very simply put, decided that litigation funding agreements (“LFAs”), permitting funders to recover a percentage of damages, amounted to (“DBAs”) damages-based agreements by virtue of s.58AA of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (the “1990 Act”). As such, all LFAs (including those retrospectively drafted) were consequently required to comply with the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013 (the “2013 Regulations”) or be deemed, unenforceable.

In this article, we explore the three main industry-wide changes that have arisen as a direct result of the PACCAR ruling:

1. The diverse portfolio of LFA reformulation strategies deployed by litigation finance stakeholders.
2.  The government response, both in terms of official statements and policy changes, which have ultimately led to the draft bill of 19 March 2024.
3.  The wave of litigations subsequent to the PACCAR ruling, giving insight into the practical market consequences of the ruling.

Ultimately, the PACCAR impact and its proposed reversal has not undermined the UK litigation finance market, in fact the contrary; it has promoted visibility and adaptation of a litigation finance market that continues to gain significant traction in the UK. As a result, despite the concern shown by most UK industry stakeholders about the negative impacts of the PACCAR ruling, this article argues that proper regulation could indeed be highly advantageous, should it incentivise responsible investment, whilst protecting proper access to justice. However, the question does remain, will we ever get there?

The LFA reformulation storm.

As expected, the first reaction to PACCAR came from the litigation finance market. As anticipated, LFAs (those with an investor return formula based on a percentage of the damages recovered) are being amended by parties to avoid their potential unenforceability.

The majority of amendments being implemented are aimed to design valuation methodologies for the amount recovered, which are not directly related to the damages recovered, but are rather a function of some other metric or waterfall, therefore involving a process of alteration of pricing. The intention is for the agreements to fall out of the scope of the definition of ‘claims management services’ provided by section 58AA of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (CLSA), which stipulates two main criteria: (i) the funder is paid if the litigation succeeds, and (ii) the amount paid back to the funder is a function of the amounts recovered by the claimant in damages. As such, novel pricing structures such as charging the amount granted in third-party funding with accrued interest; a multiple of the funded amount; or even a fixed pre-agreed amount recovered in the form of a success fee, would not meet both criteria and would hence fall outside of the legal definition of claims management services. These options would avoid the risk of an LFA being bound to the same requirements of a DBA and potentially rendered unenforceable.[2]

Another option to render LFAs enforceable following PACCAR is of course to make these compliant to the definition of DBA provided in s.58AA(2) of the 1990 Act. As such, LFAs would be subjected to stringent statutory conditions as per the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013 (the “2013 Regulations”). This option has however not been the most attractive for funders, firstly due to funders not necessarily conducting claims management services and, secondly, because LFAs would automatically become subject to highly stringent rules to structure the agreements and pursue recovery. For example, such LFAs would need to comply with the cap requirements outlined in the 2013 Regulations such as: 25% of damages (excluding damages for future care and loss) in personal injury cases, 35% on employment tribunal cases and 50% in all other cases.

Ultimately, it can be argued that the choice for restructuring a single LFA or a portfolio of LFAs will vary on a case-by-case basis. Those parties who find themselves at more advanced stages of proceedings will be disadvantaged due to the significant challenges they are likely to face in restructuring such LFAs. From the perspective of the legal sector, on the one hand, we can see an increase in law firms’ portfolio lending, whereby the return to funders is not directly related to damages recovered by the plaintiff. On the other hand, there are certain actors who are remaining only superficially affected by the ruling, such as all funding facilities supporting law firms which raise debt capital collateralised by contingent legal fees.

The introduction of the proposed bill by the government (which is discussed below), is a reflection of the enormous burden the Supreme Court ruling has placed on critical litigation funder stakeholders who are likely to have invested disproportionate sums to amend their LFAs and restructure their litigation portfolios. However, the bill has also given momentum to the sector and is helping to highlight the importance of diversification in litigation funding to protect the interests of low-income claimants. The medium-term net balance of the regulation might be rendered positive if redirected at perfecting and not prohibiting third-party funding agreements to protect access to justice.

The UK Government Intervention.

The UK government has raised concerns regarding the legal and financial impacts of PACCAR relatively swiftlyfollowingthe 26 July 2023 judgement. Their first response to PACCAR came from the Department of Business and Trade (DBT) at the end of August 2023. The DBT stated that, being aware of the Supreme Court decision in PACCAR, it would be “looking at all available options to bring clarity to all interested parties.”[3]

In the context of opt-out collective proceedings before CAT, the government proposed in November 2023 amendments to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (DMCC) through the introduction of clause 126, which sought to implement changes to the Competition Act 1998 (CA) to provide that an LFA would not count as a DBA in the context of opt-out collective proceedings in the CAT. This proposal came from the understanding that after PACCAR opt-out collective proceedings would face even greater challenges considering that under c.47C(8) of the CA 1998 DBAs are unenforceable when relating to opt-out proceedings. Proposals for additional amendments to the DMCC soon followed, many of which await final reading and approval by the House of Lords. However, in December 2023 Lord Sandhurst (Guy Mansfield KC) noted that while amendments to the DMCC would mitigate PACCAR’s impact on LFAs for opt-out collective proceedings in the CAT, “the key issue is that the Supreme Court’s PACCAR ruling affects LFAs in all courts, not just in the CAT, and not just, as this clause 126 is designed to address, in so-called opt-out cases.”

As a response to this, the Ministry of Justice announced last March that the government intended to extend the approach taken for opt-out collective proceedings in the CAT to all forms of legal proceedings in England and Wales by removing LFAs from the DBAs category entirely. The statement promised to enact new legislation which would “help people pursuing claims against big businesses secure funding to take their case to court”and“allow third parties to fund legal cases on behalf of the public in order to access justice and hold corporates to account”.[4]

Following this announcement, the Litigation Funding Agreements (Enforceability) Bill was published and introduced to the House of Lords. As promised by the government’s previous statements, the primary purpose of the Bill is to prevent the unenforceability of legitimate LFAs fitting into the amended DBA definition of PACCAR. Indeed, the bill aims to restore the status quo by preventing litigation funding agreements from being caught by s.58AA of the 1990 Act.[5]

The litigation wave.

As parliamentary discussions continue, all eyes are now in the Court system and the pending decisions in litigations arising from PACCAR. Despite the government’s strong stance on this matter, the bill is still in early stages. The second reading took place in April 2024, where issues such as the retrospective nature of the Bill, the Civil Justice Council’s (CJC) forthcoming review of litigation funding, and the need to improve regulations on DBAs, were discussed. Nevertheless, despite the arguable urgency of addressing this issue for funders and the litigation funding market, there is no indication that the bill will be expedited; hence the next step for the bill passage is the Committee stage. The myriad of cases arising from PACCAR may need to stay on standstill for a while, as Courts are likely to await the outcome of the proposed bill before deciding on individual matters.

The UK has a longstanding history of tension between the judiciary power and the two other spheres of the government, the Executive and Parliament. Most of these instances have sparked public debate and have profoundly changed the conditions affecting the market and its players. For example, in the case of R (on the application of Miller and another) (Respondents) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Appellant) [2017] UKSC 5, Gina Miller launched legal proceedings against the Johnson government to challenge the government’s authority to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union, which would start the process for the UK to leave the EU, without the Parliament’s authorisation. The High Court decided that, given the loss of individual rights that would result from this process, Parliament and not the Executive should decide whether to trigger Article 50, and the Supreme Court confirmed that Parliament’s consent was needed.

Another example is the more recent case of AAA (Syria) & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] UKSC 42 regarding the Rwanda deportation plan. In this case the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the government’s policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful – in agreement with the Court of Appeal’s decision which found that the policy would pose a significant risk of refoulement.

Nevertheless, rushing the finalisation of a bill reversing PACCAR would probably be a counterproductive move. The recent developments suggest that policy makers should focus on deploying a regulatory impact assessment on any regulations aimed at improving access to finance in litigation. Regulators and legislators should ensure that, before designing new regulatory frameworks for litigation finance,  actors from the litigation finance industry are consulted, to ensure that such regulations are adequate and align with the practical realities of the market.

As the detrimental impacts of PACCAR become ever more visible, public authorities should prioritise decisions that favour instilling clarity in the market, and most importantly, ensuring proper access to justice remains upheld in order to “strike the right balance between access to justice and fairness for claimants”.  

A deeper look into the post-PACCAR’s litigations and their domino effects

Even though the English court system is yet to rule on any post-PACCAR case, it is important to understand the immediate effects of the decision by looking at a few landmark cases. We provide in this section of the article an overview of the impacts of the rulingin perhaps the three most important ongoing post-PACCAR proceedings: Therium Litigation Funding A IC v. Bugsby Property LLC (the “Therium litigation”), Alex Neill Class Representative Ltd v Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Ltd [2023] CAT 73 (the “Sony litigation”) and the case of Alan Bates and Others v Post Office Limited [2019] EWHC 3408 (QB), which led to what has been known as the “Post Office scandal” (also referred to as the “Horizon scandal”).

Therium litigation

The Therium litigation is one of the first cases in which an English court considered questions as to whether an LFA amounted to a DBA following the Supreme Court decision in PACCAR. The case concerned the filing of a freezing injunction application by Therium Litigation Funding I AC (“Therium”) who had entered into an LFA with Bugsby Property LLC (“Bugsby”) in relation to a claim against Legal & General Group (“L&G”). The LFA stipulated between Therium and Bugsby entitled Therium to (i) return of the funding it had provided; (ii) three-times multiple of the amount funded; and (iii) 5% of any damages recovered over £37 million, and compelled Bugsby’s solicitors to hold the claim proceeds on trust until distributions had been made in accordance with a waterfall arrangement set out in a separate priorities’ agreement.

Following a settlement reached between Bugsby and L&G, Bugby’s solicitors transferred a proportion of settlement monies to Bugsby’s subsidiary, and notified Therium of the intention to transfer the remaining amount to Bugsby on the understanding that the LFA signed between Therium and Bugsby was unenforceable as it amounted to a DBA following the PACCAR ruling. Therium applied for an interim freezing injunction against Bugsby under s.44 of the Arbitration Act 1996 and argued that, as the payment scheme stipulated by the LFA contained both a multiple-on-investment and a proportion of damage clauses, and the minimum recovery amount to trigger the damage-based recovery had not been reached, no damage-based payment was foreseen.

This meant that the DBA clause within the LFA could be struck off without changing the nature of the original LFA, so that it constituted an “agreement within an agreement”. As legal precedents such as the Court of Appeal ruling in Zuberi v Lexlaw Ltd [2021] EWCA Civ 16 allowed for parts of an agreement to be severed so as to render the remainder of the agreement enforceable, the High Court granted the freezing injunction, affirming that a serious question was raised by Therium regarding whether certain parts of the agreement could be severed to keep the rest of the LFA enforceable.

By declaring that there was a serious question to be tried as to whether the non-damage clauses, such as the multiple-based payment clauses, are lawful or not, the High Court opened the possibility of enforceability of existing LFAs through severability of damage-based clauses in instances where PACCAR may also apply. The Therium litigation presents an example of another possible structuring strategy to shape LFAs to prevent them from becoming unenforceable under PACCAR. Nonetheless, as the freezing injunction will now most likely lead to an arbitration, a final Court ruling on the validity of these non-damage-based schemes appears to be unlikely.

Sony litigation

The Sony group litigation is another example of one of the first instances where issues of compliance of a revised LFA have been addressed in the aftermath of PACCAR, this time in the context of CAT proceedings. In this competition case, Alex Neill Class Representative Limited, the Proposed Class Representative (PCR), commenced collective proceedings under section 47B of the CA 1998 against Sony Interactive Entertainment Network Europe Limited and Sony Interactive Entertainment UK Limited (“Sony”). The claimant alleged that Sony abused its dominant market position in compelling publishers and developers to sell their gaming software through the PlayStation store and charging a 30% commission on these sales.

The original LFA entered between Alex Neill and the funder as part of the Sony litigation amounted to a DBA and would have therefore been unenforceable pursuant to PACCAR. On this basis, the PCR and funder negotiated an amended LFA designed to prevent PACCAR enforceability issues. The LFA in place was amended to include references for funders to obtain a multiple of their total funding obligation or a percentage of the total damages and costs recovered, only to the extent enforceable and permitted by applicable law. The LFA was also amended to include a severance clause confirming that damages-based fee provisions could be severed to render the LFA enforceable.

The CAT ultimately agreed with the position of the PCR and confirmed that the revised drafting “expressly recognise[d] that the use of a percentage to calculate the Funder’s Fee will not be employed unless it is made legally enforceable by a change in the law.” In relation to the severance clause, the CAT also expressly provided that such clause enabled the agreement to avoid falling within the statutory definition of a DBA and referred to the test for effective severance clauses.

The CAT’s approach in recognising the PACCAR ruling and yet allowing for new means to render revised LFAs enforceable in light of this decision provides a further example of a Court’s interpretation of the decision, allowing another route for funders to prevent the unenforceability of agreements. Allowing these clauses to exempt litigation funders from PACCAR will in fact allow for such clauses to become market standard for LFAs, and in this case particularly for those LFAs backing opt-out collective proceedings in the CAT.

Post Office scandal  

Although the Post Office scandal occurred in 2019, this case was only recently brought back to light following the successful tv series ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ which recounts the story of the miscarriage of justice suffered by hundreds of sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses (SPM’s) in the past two decades. In short, the Post Office scandal concerned hundreds of SPM’s being unjustly taken to court for criminal offences such as fraud and false accounting, whilst in reality the Horizon computer system used by Post Office Ltd (POL) was found to contain errors that caused  inaccuracies in the system.

Mr. Bates, leading claimant in the case, brought the case on behalf of all the SMP’s which had been unfairly treated by POL. The issuing of the claim was only made possible thanks to a funding arrangement between litigation funders and the SPM’s, used as a basis for investors to pay up front legal costs. As outlined in a publication by Mr Bates in January 2024, such financing, combined with the strength and defiance of Mr. Bates’ colleagues, allowed the case to be brought forward, a battle which in today’s circumstances the postmaster believes would have certainly been lost.[6]

The sheer scale of the Post Office scandal, and the fact that traditional pricing vehicles for legal services would have negated the claimants access to justice, placed the case near the top of the government’s agenda and called again into question the effect of PACCAR on access to justice. Justice Secertary Alex Chalk MP relied on the example of Mr Bates and the Post Office scandal to affirm that that “for many claimants, litigation funding agreements are not just an important pathway to justice – they are the only route to redress.”[7]In light of this recent statement more radical changes to legislation on litigation funding and the enforceability of LFAs appear to be on the horizon.

Conclusion

Assessing the long-term impact of PACCAR will ultimately need to wait until the dust in the litigation finance market settles. Nonetheless, the immediate impacts of the decision have brought four key considerations to light.

First, the relevance of the litigation funding industry in the UK is substantial and any attempt to regulate it impacts not only those who capture value from the market but also the wider society. Regulation of litigation funding could inadvertently affect wider policy questions such as equal access to justice, consumer rights, protection of the environment and human rights.

Second, there is an undeniable intention of the regulators to oversee the litigation finance market, which could reflect in stability and predictability that would be much welcomed by institutional investors and other stakeholders. However, this conclusion assumes that regulatory efforts will be preceded by robust impact assessment and enforced within clear guardrails, always prioritising stability and ensuring proper access to justice.

Third, PACCAR serves to bring awareness that attempts to regulate a market in piecemeal can lead to detrimental outcomes and high adapting costs, far offsetting any positive systemic effects brought by the new framework. Any attempts to regulate a market so complex and relevant for the social welfare should be well-thought-out with the participation of key stakeholders.

Fourth, despite the recent headwinds, the market and government reaction further prove that the litigation finance market continues its consolidation as an effective vehicle to drive value for claimants and investors. The fundamentals behind the market’s growth are still solid and the asset class is consolidating as a strategy to achieve portfolios’ uncorrelation with normal market cycles. As private credit and equity funds as well as venture capitalists, hedge funds and other institutions compete to increase their footprint in this burgeoning market, it is safe to expect a steady increase of market size and investors’ appetite for the thesis.

In conclusion, despite a first brush view of the PACCAR decision, the reactions to this decision and the subsequent developments have evidenced how litigation finance continues to be a promising investment strategy and an effective tool to drive social good and access to justice.

[1] Ana Carolina Salomao, Micaela Ossio and Sarah Voulaz, Is the Supreme Court ruling in PACCAR really clashing with the Litigation Finance industry? An overview of the PACCAR decision and its potential effects, Litigation Finance Journal, 10 October 2023.

[2] Daniel Williams, Class Action Funding: PACCAR and now Therium – what does it mean for class action litigation?, Dwf, October 25, 2023.

[3] Department for Business and Trade statement on recent Supreme Court decision on litigation funding: A statement from the department in response to the Supreme Court’s Judgement in the case of Paccar Inc. and others vs. Competition Tribunal and others. Available at: <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/department-for-business-and-trade-statement-on-recent-supreme-court-decision-on-litigation-funding>.

[4] Press release, ‘New law to make justice more accessible for innocent people wronged by powerful companies’ (GOV.UK, 4 March 2024) Available at <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-law-to-make-justice-more-accessible-for-innocent-people-wronged-by-powerful-companies>.

[5] Litigation Funding Agreements (Enforceability) Bill (Government Bill originated in the House of Lords, Session 2023-24) Available at <https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3702/publications>.

[6] Alan Bates, ‘Alan Bates: Why I wouldn’t beat the Post Office today’ (Financial Times, 12 January 2024) <https://www.ft.com/content/1b11f96d-b96d-4ced-9dee-98c40008b172>.

[7] Alex Chalk, ‘Cases like Mr Bates vs the Post Office must be funded’ (Financial Times, 3 March 2024) <https://www.ft.com/content/39eeb4a6-d5bc-4189-a098-5b55a80876ec?accessToken=zwAGEsgQoGRQkc857rSm1bxBidOgmFtVqAh27A.MEQCIBNfHrXgvuIufYajr8vp1jmn9z9H9Bwl0FC-u96h8f4LAiBumh82Jxp30mqQsGb71VSoAmYWUwo9YBO2kF5wuMP5QA&sharetype=gift&token=7a7fe231-8fea-4a0d-9755-93fc3e3689aa>.