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Burford Capital’s latest research trains a spotlight on an oft-overlooked revenue stream hiding in plain sight: opt-out commercial class actions.

A PR Newswire release reveals findings from an independent survey of 301 US in-house lawyers. More than half the corporates surveyed faced potential class-action recoveries topping $50 million over the past five years, yet 62 % habitually remained in the class. Asked why, 73 % pointed to litigation costs and 71 % flagged timing-and-outcome uncertainty—precisely the frictions legal finance is designed to absorb. Burford Vice-Chair David Perla framed the takeaway bluntly: “Value creation is being left on the table.”

Beyond headline stats, the report underscores a growing corporate appetite for monetisation structures: upfront capital in exchange for a slice of an eventual award. With treasury teams laser-focused on liquidity in a higher-for-longer rate environment, that message is likely to land.

For funders, the data provide fresh ammunition in boardroom pitches: opting out plus non-recourse financing can turbo-charge recoveries without budget hits.

Sen. Thom Tillis’s bid to tack the “Tackling Predatory Litigation Funding Act” onto the Senate’s broad tax package has jolted the litigation-finance community. The North Carolina Republican frames his proposal as consumer protection, but funders say it targets them for punitive treatment just as capital flows into the sector to help plaintiffs and contingency-fee firms square off against deep-pocketed defendants.

An opinion piece in The Washington Times warns that the measure would “weaponize” the Internal Revenue Code. The bill would slap a 40.8 percent levy on “qualified litigation proceeds,” collected at the funding-vehicle level regardless of investor tax status. Any arrangement that “creates a direct or collateralized interest” in case outcomes is swept in—including law-firm loans carrying interest above seven percent. Losses, NOLs and routine expenses could not offset gains, and the tax would reach back to deals inked before 2026 if profits are realized afterward.

Supporters such as former Treasury official James Carter claim the change would close what they see as a loophole allowing foreign investors to harvest U.S. judgments tax-free, projecting $3.5 billion in new revenue over ten years. Detractors—among them NYU tax scholar Gregg Polsky—call the bill a “kill shot” that ignores existing capital-gains rules, punishes pension funds and endowments, and sets a dangerous precedent for targeting disfavored industries through confiscatory rates.

Should the Tillis language survive conference, after-tax returns for U.S. funders could be cut nearly in half overnight, chilling new commitments and driving capital offshore. The industry’s response—mobilizing heavyweight lobbyists and building bipartisan coalitions—will test whether its growing economic footprint can translate into political clout on Capitol Hill.

Bangladesh’s interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has launched an aggressive hunt for wealth allegedly spirited offshore during Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year rule. Central-bank governor and former IMF economist Ahsan H. Mansur says the campaign could target “tens of billions” across multiple jurisdictions, and he is canvassing up to US $100 million in third-party capital to pay the legal bills.

An article in The Asian Age reports that global funder Omni Bridgeway has already held a series of meetings in Dhaka and London with Mansur and executives from sixteen domestic banks to structure a bespoke vehicle that would finance asset-tracing, judgment enforcement and recovery of non-performing loans. Omni’s enforcement managing director Wieger Wielinga confirmed interest, citing the firm’s recent sovereign-award collections and its appetite for emerging-market risk. Mansur’s London visit earlier this month also included briefings with UK regulators on evidence-gathering and potential freezing orders.

The proposed fund would complement eleven “high-priority” probes already under way and could operate on a contingency-fee basis, shielding taxpayers from upfront legal spend while granting funders a share of any recovered sums. Critics inside Bangladesh warn that cash settlements with so-called “financial rogues” risk undercutting the anti-corruption mandate that powered the July 2024 revolution, while political opponents liken the plan to “outsourcing justice.”

If finalized, this mandate would rank among the largest sovereign asset-recovery financings to date, signaling widening acceptance of public-sector litigation funding across the Global South.

Germany’s third-party funding market has evolved from a niche offshoot of insurance indemnity into a dynamic arena powered by collective-redress reforms and inbound capital. Practitioners say deal flow is rising as consumers leverage new opt-out mechanisms and corporates monetize dormant claims amid higher interest rates.

An article in CDR News chronicles how Deminor Litigation Funding, Latin-American entrant Loopa Finance and global heavyweight Omni Bridgeway are jockeying for market share while lawmakers debate caps on funder fees. Interviewees highlight a pivot toward portfolio deals and judgment-enforcement finance as Germany’s debtor-friendly regime forces sharper recoverability analytics. Law firms remain cautious after the Federal Court of Justice’s 2024 disclosure ruling left grey areas on privilege and control.

Observers foresee a surge in competition-damages and diesel-emissions claims once the EU’s Representative Actions Directive is fully transposed. Insurers—long the dominant capital providers—now face competition from specialist funds offering bespoke risk-sharing structures, while US and UK investors eye cross-border arbitration opportunities seated in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf.

The Senate’s proposed 41 percent levy on litigation-finance profits “solves nothing besides optics” and risks driving up overall litigation costs, according to tax columnist Andrew Leahey.

A column in Bloomberg Law argues the bill misunderstands how funders realize returns, which often materialize years after cash outlays and only when cases prevail. That timing quirk means the nominal rate vastly overstates the real burden.

Leahey notes the draft also exempts foreign-state-backed funders, potentially inviting capital from “countries of concern” to fill any vacuum left by U.S. investors. He predicts that, if enacted, the measure would raise little revenue while prompting constitutional challenges under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments—particularly on grounds of discriminatory treatment and retroactivity.

For the legal-funding market, the column crystallizes several dangers: higher pricing for plaintiffs, larger settlement demands as investors recoup costs, and a shift toward opaque offshore vehicles not subject to U.S. oversight. Funders may therefore front-load deals before any retroactive effective date and step up advocacy for transparency-oriented reforms over punitive taxation.

Burford Capital has moved to knock out Tyson Foods’ interference lawsuit, telling an Illinois federal judge that the meat-packing giant—not the world’s largest litigation financier—scuttled talks to resolve sprawling chicken price-fixing claims brought by food distributor Sysco. In a motion to dismiss filed this week, Burford branded Tyson’s allegations of settlement meddling as “threadbare” speculation aimed at diverting attention from the underlying antitrust accusations.

An article in Reuters details Tyson’s April complaint accusing Burford of trying to “co-opt the legal system” by blocking a deal Sysco had weighed. Tyson says the funder leveraged its $140 million financing stake to push for a richer payout, impeding Sysco’s autonomy in the long-running poultry cartel litigation.

Burford’s filing counters that its 2019 funding agreement explicitly allows the financier to participate in settlement talks and notes Tyson rejected Sysco’s last offer back in 2021. After Burford thwarted what it viewed as sub-par settlements, Sysco transferred its claims to Burford affiliate Carina Ventures, removing the food-service giant from the case while preserving its potential recovery.

The skirmish comes as congressional Republicans revive proposals to tax litigation-finance proceeds at nearly 41%, underscoring a season of heightened scrutiny over how much influence funders wield in antitrust and class actions. Burford, which has repeatedly defended its model as bolstering access to justice, says Tyson’s suit would chill capital-backed claims by re-writing freely negotiated contracts after the fact.

For funders, the outcome may clarify how far investment contracts can reach into settlement strategy—especially when the underlying defendant wants a bargain exit. If Burford prevails, expect financiers to lean harder on contractual rights; if Tyson scores traction, future deals could feature stricter carve-outs to avoid similar challenges.

Regulatory upheaval is back on the agenda in London. Litigation Capital Management (LCM) has published a punch-by-punch analysis of the Civil Justice Council’s long-awaited Final Report on Litigation Funding, released earlier this month. The Working Party’s 58 recommendations include reversing PACCAR via legislation, imposing case-specific capital-adequacy tests, mandating early disclosure of funder identity and ultimate capital source, and introducing a “comprehensive but light-touch” statutory regime to replace today’s voluntary code.

In an article in Lexology, Sarah Webster of LCM notes that some proposals—such as exempting arbitration from the new rules and declining to cap funder returns—will please investors. Others, LCM argues, risk spawning “significant satellite litigation” and dampening appetite: an unenforceability penalty for regulatory breaches could hand defendants leverage to unravel funding deals mid-stream, while forcing disclosure of every ultimate investor may chill fundraising.

Additional layers for consumer and opt-out class actions would require independent KC advice and court sign-off on funder returns, potentially elongating timelines and increasing costs. Nonetheless, LCM welcomes recommendations to make funding costs recoverable in “exceptional circumstances” and to establish a standing data-collection committee that could inject empirical rigour into future policy debates.

Taken together, the Report sketches the most sweeping overhaul of third-party funding anywhere in the common-law world. Whether Westminster enacts the package—and how swiftly—now becomes the trillion-pound question.