In a ruling that could chill litiga tion funding of cases in English courts, a London judge held in October that third-party litigation funders are liable for additional costs when the parties that they fund engage in trial abuses.
The ruling came in a failed $1.65 billion case brought by an obscure entity called Excalibur Ventures LLC, which hired Clifford Chance to sue four oil companies over petroleum interests in Kurdistan. With the October ruling, the funders’ total tab for this disastrous case has risen to $57.7 million.
