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Commercial

Jonathan Sablone Launches Sablone Advisory LLC, a Boutique Law and Advisory Firm Focused on Litigation Finance

By John Freund |
April 29, 2026

Jonathan Sablone Launches Sablone Advisory LLC, a Boutique Law and Advisory Firm Focused on Litigation Finance

Jonathan Sablone, a commercial disputes attorney with three decades of cross-border, financial services, and litigation finance experience, has launched Sablone Advisory LLC — a Boston-based boutique positioned to serve claimants, funders, and insurers across the legal finance ecosystem under the tagline “at the intersection of law and finance™.”

According to Sablone Advisory LLC, the new firm offers underwriting, diligence, monitoring, and asset management services to litigation funders and to insurers offering contingent risk products. On the claimant side, Sablone Advisory works with plaintiffs and their counsel to position cases for funding, including packaging case portfolios for cross-collateralized funding and insurance wrappers — services that have become increasingly central as funders and insurers structure deals across multiple matters and risk layers.

“I founded Sablone Advisory to assist clients with the most intractable problems and issues facing the legal finance industry,” said Sablone in announcing the launch. “‘At the intersection of law and finance’ is not just a slogan, but a practical, commercial approach to legal problem-solving that I have practiced for decades.”

The launch reflects a continuing trend in the litigation finance industry: senior practitioners with capital-markets and complex-litigation backgrounds spinning out of large institutional platforms to offer specialized, independent advisory and underwriting services. As funders increasingly structure portfolio-level deals, layer ATE and contingent risk insurance into capital stacks, and pursue cross-border recoveries, demand for senior independent diligence and asset management — particularly from professionals fluent in both legal strategy and structured finance — has grown.

For claimants and their counsel, the firm’s case-positioning services are likely to resonate in a market where funders are increasingly selective about case quality, structure, and counsel pedigree. For funders and insurers, an independent boutique offering monitoring and asset management — separate from origination — represents the kind of service-provider infrastructure that more mature alternative-asset markets typically develop as they scale.

Inquiries can be directed to Jonathan Sablone at jsablone@sabloneadvisory.com or via www.sabloneadvisory.com.

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John Freund

John Freund

Commercial

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Commercial

Academics Fact-Check German Business Lobby’s Case for Restricting Litigation Funding

Two competition law academics have published a point-by-point examination of the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry's position on collective redress and litigation funding, concluding that several of the central claims advanced in support of tighter restrictions are false, misleading or unsupported.

As set out in a Kluwer Competition Law Blog analysis by Eduardo Silva de Freitas of the Asser Institute and Lena Hornkohl of the University of Vienna, the DIHK statement calls for litigation funders to be brought under supervision comparable to financial market regulation and for funding agreements to be disclosed in full. The authors test five of its underlying assertions.

The DIHK's claim that transparency requirements are lacking is assessed as false: Article 10 of the Representative Actions Directive already establishes disclosure obligations for litigation funding arrangements. The assertion that funders operate in a "nearly unregulated space" is described as misleading, the authors pointing to a European Commission study finding that third-party funding legislation exists in the vast majority of EU member states.

The claim of a widespread consensus that the Directive requires significant improvement is treated as unsupported, with the authors finding no sufficient body of independent studies behind it. The criticism that no minimum registration period applies to qualified entities is called misleading, since Article 4(3)(a) requires 12 months of actual public activity before designation.

The analysis reserves particular attention for the DIHK's figure that funders typically take 20% to 50% of damages. The authors describe this as misleading, noting that German law caps funder remuneration at 10% and that differentiated models operate below that level.

Commercial

Law Firms Turn to MSO Structures to Access Outside Capital and Partner Liquidity

Management services organisations have become a leading route for outside investors to participate in the economics of US law firms without breaching the prohibition on non-lawyer ownership, and the structure is drawing sustained interest from private capital.

As explained in a Nixon Peabody analysis by Allan H. Cohen and Samantha R. Barbere, an MSO is a non-professional entity that provides administrative and support services to a professional practice. The arrangement separates professional ownership from administrative infrastructure: non-licensed investors may own the MSO, while licensed attorneys retain exclusive control of the law firm and all legal work.

The authors identify two principal motivations driving adoption. The first is access to capital, giving firms resources to invest in technology such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity at a time of escalating client demands for efficiency. The second is partner liquidity — the bifurcated structure allows partners to monetise the value of their ownership through a sale to non-professional investors, expanding options beyond traditional buyouts and transactions between lawyers.

Execution requires care. Firms must transfer non-professional assets to the MSO and enter into an administrative services agreement governing the relationship. Critically, fees paid to the MSO must reflect fair market value for the services provided, rather than a percentage of revenue, in order to comply with the fee-splitting prohibition in ABA Model Rule 5.4(a).

For the litigation finance market, the structure matters because it represents a parallel channel for outside capital to reach the legal services sector — one that competes with, and in some cases complements, case-level and portfolio funding as a means of financing law firm growth.

Commercial

Govia Thameslink Class Action Collapses After Funding and Insurance Fall Through

A long-running opt-out collective action against Govia Thameslink Railway has come to an end after the claim failed to secure a replacement class representative backed by adequate funding and insurance, marking one of the more consequential funding-driven failures in the Competition Appeal Tribunal's collective proceedings regime.

As reported by Global Competition Review, the claim has collapsed as a result of funding problems. The proceedings, certified in October 2022, alleged pricing discrimination in the operator's fare structure on behalf of rail passengers.

The claim was left without a class representative following the death of David Boyle, who had brought the action. Walter Merricks, best known for leading the Mastercard collective action, applied to take over the role but withdrew in January 2026 after being unable to obtain after-the-event insurance for the proceedings.

That withdrawal carried its own consequences. As reported by the Law Society Gazette, the Tribunal ordered interim payments totalling £70,000 — £45,000 to the defendants and £25,000 to the estate — finding it "beyond argument" that reasonable costs incurred should be borne by Merricks and his funder, Litigation Capital Management. The Tribunal considered the £337,695 originally claimed to be excessive.

With the proceedings stayed, the Tribunal set a deadline of 4pm on 24 July for an application to approve a suitable replacement class representative, failing which the collective proceedings order would be revoked and the claim decertified.

The outcome underscores how tightly the viability of UK collective proceedings is bound to the availability of funding and ATE cover, and how quickly a certified claim can unravel when either becomes unobtainable.