International dispute resolution funder Vannin Capital, has this week published the second report in its Funding in Focus series focused on providing insights, case studies and independent opinions on the high growth area of third party litigation funding (“TPLF”) in key global markets and sectors.
Capturing the views of a broad range of stakeholders, this edition draws upon the experiences of solicitors, general counsel, finance directors, funders and the judiciary.
Referring to an exclusive survey conducted for the purposes of the report, it highlights some interesting statistics and challenges for the business community:
- 64% of in-house lawyers surveyed say that their litigation spend has increased over the past two years.
- 56% of companies surveyed noted that they had at some stage not pursued meritorious claims due to the costs of bringing an action.
- Only 8% of corporate respondents to the survey said that their lawyers ‘always’ came within budget. 14% said that their lawyers never set a budget.
Reinforcing a key message from the inaugural report in the Funding in Focus series, this report discusses how TPLF can advance the public interest by facilitating access to justice addressing the high costs of litigation. However, it also underlines the many commercial benefits that TPLF can provide to the business community by removing the cost of litigation from a company’s balance sheet, ensuring that the cost of the claim has no impact on EBITDA and reducing, or in many cases, eliminating internal legal spend. Market participants including general counsel, finance directors and auditors make the case that TPLF can help businesses of all sizes.
The report also includes two focus sections: one explaining why Germany should be a claimant’s preferred jurisdiction for bringing patent disputes and another detailing the growth of Asian jurisdictions as forums for international arbitration and the potential benefits that TPLF can provide in those jurisdictions.