Community Spotlight: Guillermo Ruiz Medrano, Attorney, CUATRECASAS

Antitrust and competition claims brought against large multinational corporations often represent lucrative opportunities for litigation funders, and the announcement of a new series of fines being imposed on two of the world’s largest technology companies could set the stage for more of these claims being brought in Europe.

Reporting by Reuters covers a major antitrust development as the European Commission has handed down multimillion dollar fines to both Apple and Meta over their breaches of the Digital Markets Act (DMA). These fines follow non-compliance investigations that began in March 2024, with Apple receiving a €500 million fine for breaching its anti-steering obligation through the App Store, and Meta being fined €200 million for breaching the DMA obligation to allow consumers the option to choose a service that uses less of their personal data.

Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition at the European Commission, said that the fines “send a strong and clear message”, and that the enforcement action should act as a reminder that “all companies operating in the EU must follow our laws and respect European values.”

In a post on LinkedIn, Gabriela Merino, case manager at LitFin, explained that these fines “mark the first non-compliance decisions issued by the Commission under the new regulatory framework.” As LFJ covered earlier this month, LitFin is funding a €900 million claim against Google in the Netherlands over its anti-competitive practices that were first brought to light by another European Commission investigation. Merino said that “these latest rulings are a welcome boost” to LitFin’s own case.

Statements from both Apple and Meta decried the fines, with the former arguing that the decision was “yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple”. 

The full press release from the European Commission detailing the investigations and associated fines can be read here.

As LFJ covered at the end of last month, the first quarter of 2025 had already demonstrated the momentum behind legislative initiatives at the state level aimed at regulating the legal funding industry.

An article in Bloomberg Law highlights the signing of legislation which introduces new restrictions and guidelines on the use of third-party litigation funding in Georgia. Governor Brian Kemp took the final step of signing Senate Bill 69 into law this week, which followed the Senate’s approval of final amendments to the bill’s text that had been made during the committee stage. Kemp celebrated the signing of the bill by saying that it represented a victory for Georgians “who for too long were suffering the impacts of an out-of-balance legal environment”.

SB 69 requires third-party funders register with Georgia’s Department of Banking and Finance, as well as prohibiting any foreign individuals or organisation from funding litigation in the state. The bill also sets out disclosure requirements for cases where a litigation funding agreement is present and puts in place restrictions on a funder’s ability to control the litigation process.

The amended bill also added provisions for the Department of Banking and Finance to deny funders’ registration applications, updated disclosure requirements to include any individual with a 10% or greater stake in a funder, and provided more specific language for defining foreign entities involved in litigation funding.

As one of the key organisations that opposed the bill, the International Legal Finance Association’s executive director, Paul Kong expressed disappointment “that the Georgia legislature was unable to find a solution to its concerns with legal funding that did not shut off critical access to the state’s courts systems.” Kong contrasted this legislation with the bill signed by Kansas’ governor earlier this month, which as LFJ reported, was viewed as an acceptable compromise between proponents and critics of third-party funding.