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The decision by US broker CAC to establish its contingent risk and litigation insurance business in London is being presented as a sign of confidence in the UK market. Others may see it differently. The expansion reflects the rapid growth of an industry built around financing, insuring and commercialising legal disputes. CAC specialises in products such as after-the-event insurance, adverse judgment cover and other policies designed to support litigation and arbitration claims. London was chosen because the UK has become one of Europe's most developed markets for litigation funding and litigation-related insurance. That is not necessarily something to celebrate.
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A significant U.S. appeals court ruling this week has exposed a question that sits at the heart of modern class action litigation—who benefits most from these cases—the claimants or the lawyers? In litigation involving BMW timing-chain defects, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit overturned a $3.7 million fee award to plaintiffs' lawyers, holding that courts should generally calculate fees using the traditional "lodestar" approach based on hours worked and reasonable rates, rather than routinely applying fee multipliers that substantially increase payouts. While the ruling concerns a technical aspect of legal costs, its implications are far broader. The court warned against awarding enhanced fees based on factors already reflected in lawyers' hourly rates or time records. In essence, judges were reminded that complexity and litigation risk should not automatically translate into larger rewards. That may sound obvious. Yet in many class actions, legal fees become one of the most fiercely contested aspects of a settlement.
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Millions of motorists caught up in the UK's car finance scandal have already waited years for justice. Now they face even longer delays as legal challenges threaten to derail the Financial Conduct Authority's proposed compensation scheme. The irony is hard to ignore. A process designed to deliver redress quickly is at risk of becoming another prolonged battle in which consumers are the last people considered.
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At a time when the UK is experiencing a steady rise in collective actions and large-scale litigation, a warning from the president of the Competition Appeal Tribunal could not be more timely. Mrs Justice Bacon's caution against "Disneyfied" economic modelling highlights a growing concern about the role increasingly complex economic theories play in modern litigation. As collective proceedings become larger and more ambitious, damages claims are often built on sophisticated models that seek to estimate losses across millions of consumers or businesses.
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The Financial Conduct Authority has issued a warning about misleading advertisements linked to potential car finance compensation claims. That should concern motorists. Not because compensation may not be available, but because a growing number of businesses are attempting to profit from uncertainty surrounding the scandal. As consumers wait for clarity on the scale of any redress scheme, claims management companies and lead generators are spending heavily on advertising designed to capture as many claimants as possible. The FCA's message is straightforward – consumers should be cautious about who they trust.
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There is perhaps no figure in modern Britain whose authority on questions of justice and compensation carries greater weight than Sir Alan Bates. For more than two decades, he pursued a campaign that many considered unwinnable, refusing to accept official assurances and institutional denials as he fought to expose what would eventually be recognised as one of the gravest miscarriages of justice in British legal history. His persistence not only vindicated hundreds of wrongly accused sub-postmasters but also forced politicians, regulators and the wider public to confront profound failures at the heart of both the Post Office and the state itself. It is therefore striking that Bates has now turned his attention to the very compensation schemes established to remedy those injustices. Appearing before MPs last week, Bates delivered a devastating assessment of the arrangements designed to compensate Horizon victims, describing them as an "utter disaster" and expressing frustration at a process that, in his view, has become bogged down in bureaucracy, delay and procedural complexity. His criticism was not simply directed at individual decisions or administrative shortcomings. Rather, it reflected a broader concern that a system ostensibly designed to deliver justice has instead become another obstacle standing between victims and the compensation they were promised.
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Independent information platform on class action risks, litigation funding structures, and claimant awareness.