According to the Amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, (Order XXV Rule 3), litigation funding in India is permissible, in that non-lawyers are not restricted from accepting remuneration upon a completed claim. With recent litigation funding partnerships in the engineering and construction sectors, it seems litigation funding in India is poised for growth.
An LFJ Conversation with Michael Kelley, Partner, Parker Poe
According to the Amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, (Order XXV Rule 3), litigation funding in India is permissible, in that non-lawyers are not restricted from accepting remuneration upon a completed claim. With recent litigation funding partnerships in the engineering and construction sectors, it seems litigation funding in India is poised for growth.
As reported in Mondaq, litigation in India is often costly and time-consuming. Many in the world’s second-most populous nation have called for reforms to the justice system, chief among those is the continued expansion of litigation funding to provide access to justice.
Currently, lawyers are restricted from taking cases on contingency, which limits the options for an impecunious plaintiff. As LFJ has reported, large construction firms like Hindustan Construction Company Limited and Patel Engineering have kicked off the litigation funding renaissance in India by assigning their claims to investors. Construction and engineering firms are ripe for funding, because many are at or near insolvency, and burdened by the prospect of excess litigation. And when the claims are against government entities (as is the case in the aforementioned examples), the prospect of a payout should the claims succeed is virtually guaranteed.
Based on the above trends, it’s likely we will see continued growth of litigation funding in the Indian market. How much growth and to what extent funding penetrates the total addressable litigation market in India is anyone’s guess. But for now at least, India is certainly worth keeping an eye on.
