Year: 2017

Litigation Finance: Work Product & Discovery in the Wake of Gharabe v. Chevron

Garrett Ordower

The closely watched case of Gbarabe v. Chevron – a class action against the oil giant based on an oil rig explosion off the coast of Nigeria – has been portrayed as a cautionary tale for the world of litigation finance. The defense attorneys’ dogged pursuit of the details of plaintiff’s outside funding, the story goes, succeeded, and aided in the attack on the adequacy of plaintiff’s counsel. The defense did successfully defeat class certification, but litigation funding ultimately played little or no role in the case’s demise.

Draft Report of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration on Third-Party Funding: What You Need Know

Marla Decker

The Draft Report of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration and the Queen Mary University of London Task Force on Third-Party Funding in International Arbitration: What You Need to Know

The international arbitration community has been a leader in the adoption and evolution of third-party funding. Continuing that trend, The International Council for Commercial Arbitration (“ICCA”) partnered with Queen Mary University of London (“QMUL”) in 2013 to establish a task force comprised of over 50 leading international arbitration experts (the “Task Force”) to “identify and study the issues that arise in relation to third-party funding in international arbitration, and to determine what outputs, if any, would be appropriate to address them.”

Litigation Finance Disclosure — It’s the Claimant’s Choice, for Now

Garrett Ordower

Claimants considering litigation financing often ask whether financing must be disclosed to U.S. courts. The answer in federal courts – for now – is no (save one limited exception).

Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure currently requires initial disclosure of a broad range of information including the documents and other materials the party expects to use to support its claims or defenses, the computation of categories of damages, the identification of those who might have discoverable information, and insurance agreements. But the rule doesn’t require all potential disclosures, including for example, litigation financing arrangements.

Why did I go from BigLaw to litigation finance? Good question.

Garrett Ordower

Since joining the Lake Whillans team this summer, I’ve been asking a lot of questions. To effectively finance litigation our team must completely understand the factual and legal basis for the claim. So we ask questions. But they have to be the right ones — informed by diligent research on the particular case and our legal knowledge and experience.

Third Party Funding in International Arbitration – Rising Interest, Rising Protections for Funded Parties

Marla Decker

Third party funding of international arbitration disputes has been a hot topic for some time, and more and more we see its globalization take hold. Third party funding and international arbitration are a natural fit because of the great risks, high costs, and large amounts at stake in international arbitration disputes. Third party funding allows those costs and risks to be mitigated by the funder in exchange for a share of the potential award. In the past year, we have seen a noticeable uptick in the number of claimants seeking funding for international arbitration claims. (Lake Whillans funds U.S and Canadian litigation as well as domestic and international arbitration).

Boaz to Deliver Keynote Address at NYC’s Litigation Funding Conference

Lee Drucker

On Friday, April 28, leaders of the litigation finance industry will gather in New York City at the 2017 Litigation Funding Conference to discuss the current state of litigation funding, as well as number of other topics relevant to the industry. The conference is a chance for legal and financial professionals to network with others in the industry and learn about the most pressing topics affecting litigation finance today.

Defense-Side Litigation Funding – In Practice

Lee Drucker

Litigation funding is not just for plaintiffs. We, at Lake Whillans, provide defense-side financing using a unique transaction structure. While our approach does not work for all defense-side litigation or arbitration, in the right circumstances, our structure provides for a straight forward transaction that allows a defendant to optimally protect its business.

Litigation Finance Ethics Primer

Marla Decker

The results reflect the growing norm of litigation funding. Forty percent of respondents have had firsthand experience working with a litigation finance firm. Interestingly, law firms with the most experience using litigation finance were the very largest and very smallest firms surveyed: law firm size of 500+ lawyers (48.57%) and law firm size of 2 – 5 lawyers (58.54%). Litigators whose practice concerns the energy industry had the highest proportion of firsthand experience followed by the technology sector; finance/banking had the lowest. A resounding 85% of those with firsthand litigation finance experience would use it again.

For those without firsthand experience, the most commonly cited reason for ruling out the possibility of litigation finance by nearly 75% of negative respondents was “ethical reservations.” We’d like to address those reservations with a primer on the ethics of litigation finance.

Racing to The Start Line: Singapore & Hong Kong Take Steps To Permit Third Party Funding

Marla Decker

Recently, the race in Asia has led Hong Kong and Singapore to introduce legislation that would enable the use of third-party funding in arbitrations seated there. Lake Whillans funds litigation and arbitration globally, and we asked Nicholas Lingard, Robert Kirkness and Emily Stennett of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s international arbitration practice in Asia to detail the recent developments in Hong Kong and Singapore.

Contact Us

The best way for companies and their counsel to determine if litigation finance is an attractive option is to discuss it with us.

Lee Drucker drucker@lakewhillans.com