The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has added its voice to the trucking industry's campaign for mandatory disclosure of third-party litigation funding, arguing that defendants in nuclear verdict cases should be told who is financing the claims against them.

As reported by Land Line, OOIDA wants outside funding of lawsuits disclosed as a matter of course rather than contested case by case. The association's position puts owner-operators and small fleets alongside the larger carriers that have driven the disclosure debate to date, and reframes it as a concern for the smallest operators rather than only for well-capitalised defendants.

The piece, written by Keith Goble, is pegged to Ohio's new funding law, which takes effect on 6 October. The statute requires disclosure of third-party litigation funding agreements and bars funding from foreign governments, foreign corporations and foreign investors outright. State Representative Meredith Craig, a Smithville Republican, said that "for too long, foreign actors have profited off Ohio citizens."

Michigan is moving on a broader measure. House Bill 5281 would require disclosure of funding agreements, establish a registration regime for funders operating in the state, prohibit commissions, referral fees and other payments between funders and attorneys or healthcare providers, and bar foreign entities from financing Michigan litigation. State Representative Mike Harris, a Waterford Republican, described the current arrangements as "shadow cash" moving through the civil justice system.

The article does not put a figure on how much outside capital is financing trucking claims, which remains the central gap in the industry's argument for disclosure.

Claimants in the long-running rugby brain injury litigation have been left with a £2.8 million costs bill payable to the defendants by the end of October, with no clarity yet on who will actually pay it.

As reported by NR Times, Senior Master Cook attributed the delays that generated the costs to what he described as the "contradictory and misguided approach" taken by Rylands Garth, the firm that originally ran the group action. KP Law has since taken over the claimants' case and must meet outstanding disclosure obligations by 31 October.

The litigation is funded in full by Asertis, which has financed the entire action over six years, including the neurological testing required to establish each claimant's condition. The report notes that it remains unclear whether the £2.8 million falls to the funder, the former firm, or the claimants themselves, a question with direct consequences for a claimant group that includes seven rugby union players who have died since the action began.

Hundreds of claimants have already been struck off the group register as the case has progressed, and Paul Downes KC has warned of the consequences of further procedural failures. The costs order is the latest in a sequence of adverse developments for the action, which was presented as a landmark test of governing bodies' duty of care in contact sport.

For funders, the case illustrates how a cost liability generated by the conduct of a law firm rather than the merits of the underlying claims can land on a funded book, and how little clarity English procedure offers about where that liability ultimately sits.