In an earlier post, I had said that the regulatory environment for litigation funding in Germany is pretty straight forward. However, success fees remain by and large illegal in this country, a certain liberalization in 2008 not withstanding. Which makes for a potentially dangerous combination. A recent judgment (paywalled) by the Court of Appeals (Oberlandesgericht) Munich dealt with the intersection of litigation funding on the one hand and success fees on the other hand. Read More
Tag: Litigation Funding
Litigation Funding – Some Empirical Findings
The March 2012 issue of Anwaltsblatt, a monthly journal issued by the German Bar Association (Deutscher Anwaltverein), reports some empirical findings on the use of litigation funding in Germany. In April/May 2011, the Soldan Institut surveyed a random sample of 1,200 lawyers in private practice. The same survey also covered success fee arrangements, on which I plan to post seperately. Read More
Update: Third-Party Litigation Funding: Movements in the German Marketplace
In last week’s post on third-party litigation funding, I had been speculating about ERGO’s plans for its recently re-branded litigation funding business, Legial. Perhaps I was not the only one:
Today’s Handelsblatt – unfortunately only in the print version, page 36, not available online to non-subscribers – reports that ERGO has no plans to exit the business, as Allianz have done. Quite to the contrary: The paper quotes Legial’s Thomas Kohlmeier as saying that ERGO plans to triple the volume of litigation funding business over the next three years.
Third-Party Litigation Funding: Movements in the German Marketplace
In the United Kingdom, third-party litigation funding is currently getting some attention in the legal press: The industry has agreed on a Code of Conduct, which was published by the Civil Justice Council in late November 2011. US litigation funders appear to have an eye on the European market – using the word European in the European sense, i.e. including the UK. What does the German market for litigation funding look like? Read More