Third-party funding

In its first annual litigation survey, Harbour Litigation Funding Ltd found that 90% of firms of solicitors said they ‘always’ or ‘sometimes’ discuss litigation funding options with the clients. More than half of the top 200 solicitors have used litigation funders. Three quarters of claims are for £3m or less while 8% have a value of more than £10m. 72% of cases incur legal costs of less than £250,000 while one in 10 cases incur costs in excess of £500,000, including experts’ fees counsel and adverse costs. 44% of the litigation workload was formed of commercial contract disputes with professional negligence claims accounting for 12% and insolvency relating claims amounting to 9% of litigation work. Fraud claims account for 7%, IP claims made up 6% and breach of trust 4% of litigation. Susan Dunn, the head of HLF Litigation Funding said: ‘We are increasingly seeing interest from claimants who can well afford the costs of litigation, but who want to share that risk and appreciate having us alongside them through the litigation.’