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Commercial Regulatory Issues

The CJC’s Review of Litigation Funding Will Have Far-Reaching Effects

The following is a contributed piece by Tom Webster, Chief Commercial Officer at Sentry Funding.

Reform is on its way for the UK’s litigation funding sector, with the Civil Justice Council firing the starting gun on its review of litigation funding on 23 April.

The advisory body set out the terms of reference for its review, commissioned by lord chancellor Alex Chalk, and revealed the members of its core working group.

The review is working to an ambitious timetable with the aim of publishing an interim report by this summer, and a full report by summer 2025. It will be based on the CJC’s function of making civil justice ‘more accessible, fair and efficient’.

The CJC said it will set out ‘clear recommendations’ for reform in some areas. This includes consideration of a number of issues that could prove very significant for funders and clients. These include:

  • Whether the sector should be regulated, and if so, how and by whom;
  • Whether funders’ returns should be subject to a cap; and if so, to what extent;
  • The relationship between third party funding and litigation costs;
  • The court’s role in controlling the conduct of funded litigation, including the protection of claimants and ‘the interaction between pre-action and post-commencement funding of disputes’;
  • Duties relating to the provision of funding, including potential conflicts of interest between funders, lawyers and clients;
  • Whether funding encourages ‘specific litigation behaviour’ such as collective action.

The review’s core working group will be co-chaired by CJC members Mr Justice Simon Picken, a Commercial Court judge, and barrister Dr John Sorabji. The four other members are:

  • High Court judge Mrs Justice Sara Cockerill, who was judge in charge of the commercial court 2020 – 2022, and who is currently involved in a project on third party funding for the European Law Institute;
  • Academic and former City lawyer Prof Chris Hodges, chair of independent body the Regulatory Horizons Council which was set up to ensure that UK regulation keeps pace with innovation;
  • Lucy Castledine, Director of Consumer Investments at the Financial Conduct Authority; and
  • Nick Bacon KC, a prominent barrister and funding expert who acts for both claimants and defendants

The CJC had said that it may also bring in a consumer representative, as well as a solicitor experienced in group litigation.

In a sign that the review seeks to be informed by a wide range of views, the CJC has also extended an invitation for experts to join a broader consultation group, which will directly inform the work of the review and provide a larger forum for expert discussion. Meanwhile the advisory body has said there will also be further chance ‘for all to engage formally with this review’ later this year.

Given the broad remit of the review and significant impact that its recommendations may have on the litigation funding industry, litigation funders, lawyers and clients would be well advised to make the most of these opportunities to contribute to the review.

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Community Spotlights

Community Spotlight: Dr. Detlef A. Huber, Managing Director, AURIGON LRC

By John Freund |

Detlef is a German attorney, former executive of a Swiss reinsurance company and as head of former Carpentum Capital Ltd. one of the pioneers of litigation funding in Latin America. Through his activities as executive in the insurance claims area and litigation funder he gained a wealth of experience in arbitrations/litigations in various businesses. He is certified arbitrator of ARIAS US and ARIAS UK (AIDA Reinsurance and Insurance Arbitration Society) and listed on the arbitrators panel of DIS (German Arbitration Institute).

He studied law in Germany and Spain, obtained a Master in European Law (Autónoma Madrid) and doctorate in insurance law (University of Hamburg).

Detlef speaks German, Spanish, English fluently and some Portuguese.

Company Name and Description:  AURIGON LRC (Litigation Risk Consulting) is at home in two worlds: dispute funding and insurance. They set up the first European litigation fund dedicated to Latin America many years ago and operate as consultants in the re/insurance sector since over a decade.

Both worlds are increasingly overlapping with insurers offering ever more litigation risk transfer products and funders recurring to insurance in order to hedge their risks. Complexity is increasing for what is already a complex product.

Aurigon acts as intermediary in the dispute finance sector and offers consultancy on relevant insurance matters.

Company Website: www.aurigon-lrc.ch

Year Founded: 2011, since 2024 offering litigation risk consulting  

Headquarters: Alte Steinhauserstr. 1, 6330 Cham/Zug Switzerland

Area of Focus:  Litigation funding related to Latin America and re/insurance disputes

Member Quote: “It´s the economy, stupid. Not my words but fits our business well. Dont focus on merits, focus on maths.”

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Announcements Commercial

Manolete Partners Releases Half-Year Results for the Six Months Ended 30 September 2024

By Harry Moran |

Manolete (AIM:MANO), the leading UK-listed insolvency litigation financing company, today announces its unaudited results for the six months ended 30 September 2024. 

Steven Cooklin, Chief Executive Officer, commented: 

“These are a strong set of results, particularly in terms of organic cash generation. In this six-month period, gross cash collected rose 63% to a new record at £14.3m. That strong organic cash generation comfortably covered all cash operating costs, as well as all cash costs of financing the ongoing portfolio of 413 live cases, enabling Manolete to reduce net debt by £1.25m to £11.9m as at 30 September 2024. 

As a consequence of Manolete completing a record number of 137 case completions, realised revenues rose by 60% to a further record high of £15m. That is a strong indicator of further, and similarly high levels, of near-term future cash generation. A record pipeline of 437 new case investment opportunities were received in this latest six month trading period, underpinning the further strong growth prospects for the business. 

The record £14.3.m gross cash was collected from 253 separate completed cases, highlighting the highly granular and diversified profile of Manolete’s income stream. 

Manolete has generated a Compound Average Growth Rate of 39% in gross cash receipts over the last five H1 trading periods: from H1 FY20 up to and including the current H1 FY25. The resilience of the Manolete business model, even after the extraordinary pressures presented by the extended Covid period, is now clear to see. 

This generated net cash income of £7.6m in H1 FY25 (after payment of all legal costs and all payments made to the numerous insolvent estates on those completed cases), an increase of 66% over the comparative six-month period for the prior year. Net cash income not only exceeded by £4.5m all the cash overheads required to run the Company, it also exceeded all the costs of running Manolete’s ongoing 413 cases, including the 126 new case investments made in H1 FY25. 

The Company recorded its highest ever realised revenues for H1 FY25 of £15.0m, exceeding H1 FY24 by 60%. On average, Manolete receives all the cash owed to it by the defendants of completed cases within approximately 12 months of the cases being legally completed. This impressive 60% rise in realised revenues therefore provides good near-term visibility for a continuation of Manolete’s strong, and well-established, track record of organic, operational cash generation. 

New case investment opportunities arise daily from our wide-ranging, proprietary, UK referral network of insolvency practitioner firms and specialist insolvency and restructuring solicitor practices. We are delighted to report that the referrals for H1 FY25 reached a new H1 company record of 437. A 27% higher volume than in H1 FY24, which was itself a new record for the Company this time last year. That points to a very healthy pipeline as we move forward into the second half of the trading year.” 

Financial highlights: 

  • Total revenues increased by 28% to £14.4m from H1 FY24 (£11.2m) as a result of the outstanding delivery of realised revenues generated in the six months to 30th September 2024.
    • Realised revenues achieved a record level of £15.0m in H1 FY25, a notable increase of 60% on H1 FY24 (£9.4m). This provides good visibility of near-term further strong cash generation, as on average Manolete collects all cash on settled cases within approximately 12 months of the legal settlement of those cases
    • Unrealised revenue in H1 FY25 was £(633k) compared to £1.8m for the comparative H1 FY24. This was due to: (1) the record number of 137 case completions in H1 FY25, which resulted in a beneficial movement from Unrealised revenues to Realised revenues; and (2) the current lower average fair value of new case investments made relative to the higher fair value of the completed cases. The latter point also explains the main reason for the marginally lower gross profit reported of £4.4m in this period, H1 FY25, compared to £5.0m in H1 FY24. 
  • EBIT for H1 FY25 was £0.7m compared to H1 FY24 of £1.6m. As well as the reduced Gross profit contribution explained above, staff costs increased by £165k to £2.3m and based on the standard formula used by the Company to calculate Expected Credit Losses, (“ECL”), generated a charge of £140k (H1 3 FY24: £nil) due to trade debtors rising to £26.8m as at 30 September 2024, compared to £21.7m as at 30 September 2023. The trade debtor increase was driven by the outstanding record level of £15.0m Realised revenues achieved in H1 FY25.
  • Loss Before Tax was (£0.2m) compared to a Profit Before Tax of £0.9m in H1 FY24, due to the above factors together with a lower corporation tax charge being largely offset by higher interest costs. 
  • Basic earnings per share (0.5) pence (H1 FY24: 1.4 pence).
  • Gross cash generated from completed cases increased 63% to £14.3m in the 6 months to 30 September 2024 (H1 FY24: £8.7m). 5-year H1 CAGR: 39%.
  • Cash income from completed cases after payments of all legal costs and payments to Insolvent Estates rose by 66% to £7.6m (H1 FY24: £4.6m). 5-year H1 CAGR: 46%.
  • Net cashflow after all operating costs but before new case investments rose by 193% to £4.5m (H1 FY24: £1.5m). 5-year H1 CAGR: 126%.
  • Net assets as at 30 September 2024 were £40.5m (H1 FY24: £39.8m). Net debt was reduced to £11.9m and comprises borrowings of £12.5m, offset by cash balances of £0.6m. (Net debt as 31 March 2024 was £12.3m.)
  • £5m of the £17.5m HSBC Revolving Credit Facility remains available for use, as at 30 September 2024. That figure does not take into account the Company’s available cash balances referred to above.

Operational highlights:

  • Ongoing delivery of record realised returns: 137 case completions in H1 FY25 representing a 18% increase (116 case realisations in H1 FY24), generating gross settlement proceeds receivable of £13.9m for H1 FY25, which is 51% higher than the H1 FY24 figure of £9.2m. This very strong increase in case settlements provides visibility for further high levels of cash income, as it takes the Company, on average, around 12 months to collect in all cash from previously completed cases.
  • The average realised revenue per completed case (“ARRCC”) for H1 FY25 was £109k, compared to the ARRCC of £81k for H1 FY24. That 35% increase in ARRCC is an important and an encouraging Key Performance Indicator for the Company. Before the onset and impact of the Covid pandemic in 2020, the Company was achieving an ARRCC of approximately £200k. Progress back to that ARRCC level, together with the Company maintaining its recent high case acquisition and case completion volumes, would lead to a material transformation of Company profitability.
  • The 137 cases completed in H1 FY25 had an average case duration of 15.7 months. This was higher than the average case duration of 11.5 months for the 118 cases completed in H1 FY24, because in H1 FY25 Manolete was able to complete a relatively higher number of older cases, as evidenced by the Vintages Table below.
  • Average case duration across Manolete’s full lifetime portfolio of 1,064 completed cases, as at 30 September 2024 was 13.3 months (H1 FY24: 12.7 months).
  • Excluding the Barclays Bounce Back Loan (“BBL”) pilot cases, new case investments remained at historically elevated levels of 126 for H1 FY25 (H1 FY24: 146 new case investments).
  • New case enquiries (again excluding just two Barclays BBL pilot cases from the H1 FY24 figure) achieved another new Company record of 437 in H1 FY25, 27% higher than the H1 FY24 figure of 343. This excellent KPI is a strong indicator of future business performance and activity levels.
  • Stable portfolio of live cases: 413 in progress as at 30 September 2024 (417 as at 30 September 2023) which includes 35 live BBLs.
  • Excluding the Truck Cartel cases, all vintages up to and including the 2019 vintage have now been fully, and legally completed. Only one case remains ongoing in the 2020 vintage. 72% of the Company’s live cases have been signed in the last 18 months.
  • The Truck Cartel cases continue to progress well. As previously reported, settlement discussions, to varying degrees of progress, continue with a number of Defendant manufacturers. Further updates will be provided as concrete outcomes emerge.
  • The Company awaits the appointment of the new Labour Government’s Covid Corruption Commissioner and hopes that appointment will set the clear direction of any further potential material involvement for Manolete in the Government’s BBL recovery programme.
  • The Board proposes no interim dividend for H1 FY25 (H1 FY24: £nil).

The full report of Manolete’s half-year results can be read here.

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Commercial Legal Innovation

LegalPay’s CIO Highlights the Opportunities and Challenges for Defense-Side Funding

By Harry Moran |

As the legal funding industry has matured and become a mainstream feature of many jurisdictions’ legal systems, funders are increasingly looking at ways to diversify their activities.

In an article for Insolvency Tracker, Tanya Prasad, CIO of LegalPay, addresses the niche topic of defense-side funding and examines whether there is potential for this type of legal funding to grow in the same way that plaintiff funding has over recent years. Prasad notes that in an environment where “the demand for risk management tools in litigation grows”, large corporations may look to third-party funders to help supplement legal budgets “while potentially achieving favourable outcomes”.

Prasad acknowledges that compared to traditional plaintiff-side funding, defense-side funding “comes with unique challenges”. Whilst claimants may seek to maximise their financial returns in the form of damages and compensation, a defendant will “generally focus on minimizing loss exposure.” As a result of this difference in goals, Prasad suggests that funders would need to not only “employ creative pricing structures”, but would also need to find new metrics to define success.

The latter point is one that Prasad argues is key to creating a viable defense-side funding ecosystem, noting that “establishing a clear definition of success” may have different parameters for different defendants. Examples of this could include structuring funding agreements to incorporate “avoided loss” measures, which would define success based on “achieving a favorable settlement or dismissal at a lower financial cost than anticipated.”

If these difficulties that Prasad highlights can be overcome, she suggests that “defense-side litigation funding has the potential to redefine legal finance, supporting fair representation for both plaintiffs and defendants and expanding access to justice across the board.” Additionally, Prasad points to a handful of examples where defense-side funding has been successfully employed, such as the Gillette v. ShaveLogic case, where Burford Capital provided funding for the defendant to successfully oppose Gillette’s claims of trades secret misappropriation and unfair competition.