BT: Personally, I think so. In England, it’s basically approved by the judiciary and the State. After we won in the Supreme Court in the PACCAR case, the government rushed through this emergency legislation to reverse the outcome of PACCAR, but it was swallowed up by the election. That Bill is dead at the moment, and it remains to be seen whether the incoming government renews it or not.
The problem is everybody seems to think that litigation funding is a good thing. I’m not convinced it always is. Sometimes, the model of litigation funding could do with some more regulation to avoid bad practices. The advantage of the Supreme Court judgment was that it operated to restrict the amount that funders could recover effectively. They were limited to a multiple of the outlay that they made into the litigation. Some of the damages-based funding, which takes a cut of the damages, leaves the claimants with very little money. I would be very cautious about adopting the current English model of litigation funding. I think it needs to be regulated, particularly having caps on the amount the funders can recover.
Litigation funding has become quite embedded in London and it’s generated a lot of litigation, but I don’t think it’s always going to be to the advantage of claimants. It’s great if you can fund a case that otherwise would never be brought before the court.
Source: Barandbench
