By way of a postscript to the preceding post ‘Too early to say‘, I have noticed at least one upturn in activity.
The market for Third Party Litigation Funding is increasingly in the news, whether because of cases like Stone & Rolls v Moore Stephens in the House of Lords in July or probably because there is a feeling that there is some mileage in this form of funding and money to be made by those who are prepared to do the hard work and raise the funds/take the risk.
Increasingly we are seeing people setting out to raise funds and I know of at least four entities which are keen to set up in this area. By no means every one of them has got all its ducks in a row and it is surely going to be difficult to raise cash in this market but it is an interesting development and could well be given a shot in the arm by the Jackson report when it sees the light of day at the end of the year.
The Business Section of last Sunday’s Sunday Times carried a report entitled Americans work to raise credit crunch legal float for London Stock Exchange about two US lawyers looking to raise a £200 million fund on the London Stock Exchange “to bankroll credit crunch litigation”.
The bulk of the work is to be focused on the US but the advent of these alternative investments may offer a crumb of comfort to those looking for signs of an upward trend in London as well as in the US. On the other hand… it may be too early to say.