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Litigation Finance is Cheaper Than You Might Think!

The following was contributed by Matthew Pitchers, Head of Investment Valuation at Augusta Ventures

I was in conversation the other day with a prospective user of our finance – a law firm who will remain nameless. The conversation was going well, very well in fact, until those seven words came up: “what is it going to cost me?”. I replied that our fee would be based on the higher of a multiple on the funds deployed or a set percentage of damages awarded. After a few seconds of silence which felt like an eternity, the response I got back was “that is very expensive, and I don’t think my client will go for it”.

This left me bemused because whilst there is a general misconception that litigation funding is expensive, when compared to other sources of secured and unsecured funding available on the market, it is in fact very competitive and sometimes even cheap. This left me thinking about how best to explain this to the enquirer at the other end of the phone who would be left explaining all available options to his client.

What is litigation funding?

What I wanted to say was:

Sir, in considering how expensive litigation funding is, one needs to first analyse what litigation funding is. This is easier to think about when considering what litigation isn’t.

It isn’t a traditional debt product. There are no guaranteed cash flows. There is no obligation on the user of the debt to repay it. Any returns that the funder makes are payable from what the defendant pays if the claim is successful, not from the finance user. Furthermore, the entire financial risk of the case is transferred to the funder, and if a case loses, the risk of adverse costs falls to the funder and not the claimant. Therefore, an amount invested upfront in a legal case in order to share in the same risks and rewards as the claimant, feels more akin to a purchase of an equity participation in a start-up than a one-step-removed loan.

To put it another way: If you were going on Dragon’s Den and your great idea was to ask the Dragons for an upfront investment in a legal case for a future share of any available returns which may or may not occur, how much of the case do you think the Dragons would want?

What the market says

In haggling over the value of your idea, the Dragons would probably consider the availability of unsecured loans, and the returns expected from venture capital start-up funding.

If you, as an individual, were to go into the market today and look for an unsecured loan you might find APR’s that range from 10.3% per annum, for those people with excellent credit scores, up to 32.0% per annum for those with poor credit scores, and that is only on amounts up to £25,000.

A good benchmark for the percentage of cases a litigation fund might win, despite all the due diligence that is performed, is around 70%. Loaning out money with only a 70% chance of getting any of it back is not similar to loaning money to a person with an excellent credit score, so litigation funders are firmly in poor credit score territory, where an APR could typically be between 28.5% and 32.0%. And remember, that is only on amounts up to £25,000, an investment in a legal case more-often-than-not, is many multiples of this size.

A such, the IRR that the funder aims for is more akin to those expected by venture capitalists, who might typically look for 30-40% annual returns on a start-up investment.

The tenor of investments

A classical case tenor for litigation funding is usually two to four years. In the interim period the funder will have not received any payments. Their risk exposure goes up over time as more money is deployed as the legal case progresses, and there is limited availability to claw back any investment if the case looks like it isn’t going to win. It is, to all intents and purposes, an investment with a binary outcome and once invested there is no going back.

An investment with an annualised return of 40% over three years would expect to achieve a 2.74X money multiple for the investor at the end of the life of the investment. Over four years the money multiple would be expected to be 3.84X. This would be at the upper end of what a litigation funder might achieve. A normal equity investment in a company has fewer downsides regarding the capital locked up, as covenants would be in place to claw back any investments if the company were mismanaged in the interim period.

Summary

In short, litigation funders are able to make worthwhile returns through rigorous diligence, investing in  cases that they expect to win and which meet their internal criteria, whilst building up a large enough portfolio that the effect of the unsystematic binary risk of losing an individual case is diluted. In return, a competent litigation funder should expect to achieve on their portfolio a rate of return that is better than a correlated investment, but lower than that achieved in the start-up markets.

A claimant, in using litigation finance, should expect all their costs to be covered, and any risk of adverse costs to be transferred to the funder. In effect it becomes a risk-free investment for the claimant, whilst they still take the larger share of any return. This would be the dream scenario for any owner of a start-up company, selling a small stake in the company and removing all future down-side risk to themselves, whilst removing the burden of future costs.

In summary Sir, this is a great opportunity for your client and it is highly competitive.

Instead, I said to the man on the other end of the phone: ‘I’m sorry yes, it does sound expensive, let me see what we can do’.

Commercial

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AALF Chairman: UK Should Avoid Repeating “Australia’s Flirtation with Overbearing Regulation”

By Harry Moran |

With the UK funding industry awaiting the outcome of the Civil Justice Council’s review of third-party litigation funding, most of the commentary about what direction the government should take has come from those professionals practicing inside the UK. However, in an example of transnational solidarity between funding markets, the head of Australia’s industry association has spoken out to encourage the UK government to act to protect its legal funding sector.

In an opinion piece for The Law Society Gazette, John Walker, chairman of the Association of Litigation Funders of Australia (AALF), presents a strong argument that the UK government must avoid following Australia’s past mistake of overregulating the legal funding industry. With the prospect of the CJC’s review soon reaching its conclusion, Walker argues that the government’s “priority must be addressing the uncertainty created by the PACCAR decision”, rather than acceding to the demands of “the powerful, well-resourced and disingenuous minority perspective of the US Chamber of Commerce.”

Walker points to the recent history of legal funding in Australia, where the strength of these critics’ views led to the previous governments introducing strict regulations that created an environment where “access to justice for claimants was denied, corporate wrongdoers were protected, and claims started to dry up.” As Walker explains, the true lesson from Australia was the reversal of these regulations by the new government in 2022, which has seen funding rebound and drive a wave of class actions representing Australians seeking justice once more.

Taking aim at the opponents of the litigation funding industry, Walker highlighted the “myths pedalled” by groups like Civil Fair Justice as being “built on falsehoods that risk clouding reality and choking off access to justice.” Putting the often-repeated claim of funders supporting frivolous claims in the crosshairs, Walker notes “in reality, funders in the UK fund as few as 3% of the cases they're approached about.”

Qanlex Rebrands as Loopa Finance

By Harry Moran |

Litigation funding startups are a common occurrence, especially in recent years. However, the rebranding of an established funder is less common, yet worth keeping an eye on.

In a new blog post, the litigation funder formerly known as Qanlex announced that it is rebranding and will now operate under the name: Loopa Finance. The funder emphasised that it is still “the same team, the same values, and the same focus”, but with a new name that represents  the adoption of a “a clearer, more modern, and more memorable identity.”

The blog post goes on to provide a fuller explanation of the new name: “Loopa refers to our way of working: examining each opportunity with a magnifying glass and creating virtuous loops of funding, access to justice, and efficient conflict resolution.” The announcement also clarifies that the rebranding “does not imply any structural, corporate, or operational modifications.”

Loopa was founded as Qanlex in 2020, offering litigation finance services for cases in Latin America before expanding its funding solutions to commercial claims and arbitrations in continental Europe. As LFJ reported in January of this year, the funder revealed that it was refining its Latin America strategy using new technologies and focusing on specific sectors within individual jurisdictions in the region. Examples of this sector focus include energy cases in Ecuador, real estate development matters in Costa Rica, and oil and energy cases in Colombia. 

More information about Loopa Finance can be found on its website

Echo Law and LLS File Class Action Against Toyota Finance in Australia

By Harry Moran |

Class actions in Australia continue to be viewed as desirable opportunities for litigation funders, with the first half of 2025 already seeing a number of funded claims brought on behalf of consumers wronged by the state or large corporations. 

A joint media release from Echo Law and Litigation Lending Services (LLS) announced that they are pursuing a new class action against Toyota Finance in Australia, this time over the sale of “junk” add-on insurance to consumers. The claim, which has been brought before the Supreme Court of Victoria, alleges that Toyota Finance and insurer Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Company Australia (ADICA), engaged in “unjust, unfair, misleading and unconscionable” conduct that breached the Corporations ACT, ASIC Act, and National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009.

The class action has been filed on behalf of any consumers who took out a car loan with Toyota Finance and were sold a Toyota branded add-on insurance policy between 1 January 2010 and 5 October 2021. The allegedly “junk” insurance policies covered by the class action include Toyota Payment Protection Insurance, Toyota Finance Gap Insurance, and Toyota Extended Warranty Insurance.

Alex Blennerhassett, Principal Lawyer at Echo Law, said that “this class action is about holding Toyota Finance and ADICA to account for knowingly selling junk insurance to everyday Australians, even though these policies offered no value.” In a separate post on LinkedIn, Emma Colantonio, Chief Investment Officer at LLS, said that the class action is “a strong example of litigation funding enabling access to justice and supporting consumers in holding major financial players to account.”

This class action is separate to the Flex Commissions claim which was filed by Echo Law against Toyota Finance in February 2024. That class focuses on allegations that car dealers secretly inflated the interest rate on consumers’ car loans, resulting in additional interest fees. The Supreme Court has ruled that these separate class actions can be managed together, and Ms Blennerhassett said that they expected “there to be a significant number of persons who are group members in both proceedings”. 

LLS is providing funding for both class actions brought against Toyota Finance. More information on both class actions can be found on Echo Law’s website.