Ever since its arrival on the stage in the early 1990s in Australia, litigation funding has managed to impact the broader legal climate in which it participates (in early 90s Australis, that was the insolvency market, today in Australia, the UK and America, that is nearly every legal sector). Take class actions, for example. Litigation funding has been proven to increase the rate of settlements in class actions by 21%. Professor Vince Morabito of Monash University compiled data leading up to July 2017, which showed that funded parties in class actions are 69% likely to settle, whereas unfunded parties are only 48% likely to settle.
According to an ICGN report shared on LinkedIn, litigation funding has had a significant impact on various sectors of the legal market. First and foremost is the non-U.S. Securities market. Ever since the Supreme Court’s seminal 2010 ruling in Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., which found that U.S. securities law applies only to stocks purchased on domestic exchanges, foreign securities investors have been ramping up legal activity across the globe.
The growth of litigation funding has (not coincidentally) coincided with this surge in shareholder class actions, as funders can not only help finance claims, but can actually engage with law firms in the laborious process of building claims and sourcing claimants in the first place. This is clearly a major boon to non-U.S. law firms, which are often prevented from working on contingency the way their U.S. counterparts can. And funders have indeed been capitalizing on this opportunity, as it has been estimated that upwards of 50% of all new class action claims in Australia are funded claims.
Of course, international arbitration is also seeing a spike in funded claims, with the formal acceptance of third party funding by both Hong Kong and Singapore last year. Arbitration is often a costly exercise, and typically lodged against extremely well-capitalized defendants. Litigation funders level the playing field for global enterprises seeking access to justice.
All told, the various impacts of funding are only just beginning to be recognized, as the industry is still in its infancy – or perhaps its mere ‘toddler’ years. There is still plenty of maturation down the road ahead for litigation funding, and if the past few years are any indication, we’re likely to see the wider legal market change drastically as a result.
