Sandfield Capital launches to re-imagine the future of legal finance
New investment fund Sandfield Capital has launched this week to tackle an increasingly challenging area of litigation that remains poorly served by the market. Steven D’Ambrosio, a former Finance Director at Close Brothers Premium Finance, has conceived and built a number of highly-successful ventures in the financial and legal sectors and remains extremely passionate about creating and tailoring funding solutions. Now, with Sandfield Capital, he hopes to enable real change in the sector for the good of those struggling to engage with legal services. Thousands of disputes cases in the UK fail to progress because of the increasingly high level of financial commitment required from day one. With average initial legal fees and disbursements coming in at around £15,000, most of us don’t have the readily-available capital available to pursue a claim. As Lord Justice Briggs pointed out in the Civil Courts Structure Review, “The single, most pervasive and intractable weakness of our civil courts is that they simply do not provide reasonable access to justice for any but the most wealthy individuals.” Whilst the explosive growth in litigation funding over the past five years has created support for cases that simply wouldn’t have seen the light of day, the litigation funding community tends to focus on higher value corporate commercial claims exceeding £2m in value and requiring at least £1m in funding. For the majority of claims that fall below that threshold there are few options for claimants. Sandfield Capital provides an easy-to-access platform that enables individuals to commence a dispute through innovative loans that cover disbursements such as court, expert and counsel fees. If the litigation is ultimately unsuccessful, the individual is fully insured against liability, safeguarding any negative financial impact. In the case of a win, the cost is simply factored into settlement. The initial focus of the fund will be on funding disbursements on cases for civil litigation, eventually moving towards partnering with more law firms to then fund their clients’ cases. D’Ambrosio comments: “At the heart of our business is a clear purpose – we believe in making justice accessible for all, regardless of financial circumstances. This is especially important right now, as we all emerge from C-19 and into an extremely uncertain economy. We also want to work with like-minded lawyers and progressive funders who want to join us in our mission to change the legal universe for good.” The firm will concentrate on offering straightforward, innovative products that support disbursement costs for a diverse range of litigations, ranging from financial mis-selling to GDPR breach. The team behind Sandfield Capital has over 100 years’ combined experience in dealing with the financial services sector, both directly and fighting for justice as a result of mis-sold products. D’Ambrosio continues: “This is about providing help to people who would have almost certainly been denied it. Our fully insured products and services will allow more people to take a stand when they have been wronged, knowing they are protected from financial repercussions. We take a special pride in being able to empower people of all backgrounds to access the justice system.”
