Following the recent decision of the Queen’s Bench for Saskatchewan in Schneider v Royal Crown Gold Reserve Inc, six provinces have now set out the guiding principles for approving third-party litigation funding agreements. Although most decisions are in the class action context, they are instructive for general commercial litigation, the core of Bentham IMF’s business in Canada.
For a cash-strapped estate, financing a litigation asset to obtain an infusion from a funder can mean the difference between continuing with a winning strategy or potential capitulation.
Bentham IMF recently celebrated its 5-year anniversary in the United States on September 21, 2016 with a seminar co-hosted by Bloomberg BNA titled "Litigation Finance: Driving Law Firm Profitability."
For plaintiffs, the growing costs of e-discovery can cramp their attempt to gather evidence and ultimately endanger their ability to pursue worthwhile litigation.
Third party litigation funding (TPF) can benefit businesses of all sizes, but small and medium sized companies can find particular value in using TPF for their cases.
In this week's blog on Prism Legal, Bentham's Dave Kerstein discusses the evolution of the litigation finance industry in the U.S. and discusses why law firms increasingly look to funding as a means to reduce risk.
With corporate legal departments facing financial constraints, litigation funders like Bentham IMF are emerging as vital partners for companies looking to recover assets and protect their rights in the marketplace.
In our conversations introducing commercial litigation funding to the Canadian legal market, we are frequently asked about maintenance and champerty. Under current Canadian jurisprudence, third-party funding does not offend the doctrines of maintenance and champerty.
Bentham’s Ralph Sutton and Julia Gewolb weigh in on the implications of Judge Illston’s decision in Gbarabe v. Chevron Corp., No. 14-cv-00173, 2016 WL 4154849 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 5, 2016) to compel a class action plaintiff to produce his confidential litigation funding agreement to the defendant.
While each funder uses a unique set of criteria to assess the potential value of investing in a case, lawyers are likely to find similarities in the factors taken into consideration.
When lawyers become comfortable with explaining the intricacies of litigation funding, they become better counselors to their clients because they are able to present a broader array of options for financing a case.
When growing a legal practice, existing clients tend to be the best source of further work. Often, however, lawyers struggle to entice current clients to give them more work.
Bentham has developed a brief list of questions that lawyers can utilize to determine whether litigation funding can help them increase their client wallet share.
Law firms exploring strategic growth have a new financing option to consider. By securing funding against a portfolio of three or more commercial litigation cases on a partial contingency basis, firms gain access to capital provided by Bentham.
Whistleblower claims have been one of the few areas of litigation on the rise. With the clarifications in the recent Supreme Court decision in Universal Health Services v. Escobar, these claims are likely to continue to grow.
