Third-Party Funding of Litigation (7 September 2017)

This panel was chaired by Remo Caponi, Professor of Civil Procedure at the University of Florence, and was devoted to Third-Party Funding of Litigation which has emerged as an alternative to traditional methods of funding litigation. Besides the possible increase in access to justice for those who would not otherwise be able to secure funding, the lack of regulation in this area was also in the centre of this discussion.

John Sorabji, Senior Judicial Institute Fellow at UCL’s Judicial Institute and former Member of the ELI Executive Committee, started the panel with a general overview of the topic and a definition of Third Party Funding of Litigation. ‘The key point is that the funder is unconnected to the rights holder and does not do so necessarily altruistically but for a price. The price could be a share of the damages’, he explained.

Alexander Klauser, Partner at bkp law firm,  focused on the Commission Recommendation of 11 June 2013 and various practical examples from Austria in this legal matter. As a consumer attorney, he emphasised: ‘In civil litigation, particularly in the field of consumer litigation, the importance of litigation funding can hardly be overestimated.’

The panellists discussed various problems in this field and raised a number of questions, such as the need for regulation and in doing so advocated an ELI Project.