Having had a fairly free regulatory ride, outside of self-regulation, thus far (at least outside Australia), litigation funding is coming under ever closer scrutiny—derived perhaps from its success—and faces challenges in its structure and workings that will cause changes and, perhaps for some less robust funds, demise.
Litigation funding has been riding the crest of the litigation wave for some years. In many cases, it has been a happy marriage between providing access to justice and gaining profit from the proceeds. A well-known example is the Post Office sub-postmasters’ litigation that would not have seen the light of day—at least in the dramatic way it did—but for the funding from litigation finance provider Therium. The Post Office fought every issue, and without funding the claimants simply could not have competed. It is likely the full horror of the facts behind that litigation would not have seen the light of day otherwise.
We should not, however, treat litigation
