Third-Party Funding: Trends, Developments and the Future
News
Mapping Study TPLF in Europe
The European Commission has released the Mapping Study on Third Party Litigation Funding (TPLF) in the European Union. This comprehensive study provides a detailed
analysis of legislation, practices, and stakeholder perspectives across the EU and in selected third countries.
Over the past years, third party litigation funding has become one of the most debated topics in European civil justice. The EU Representative Actions Directive - requiring Member States to establish collective action mechanisms for EU consumer cases - has intensified this discussion. Collective actions to obtain damages often involve significant expenses and procedural risks. In the absence of other suitable funding mechanisms, TPLF has gained prominence as a means to support such claims.
This trend was also reflected in extensive research, reported earlier on this website, carried out at the request of the Dutch Ministry of Justice on the WAMCA (the Dutch Act on Collective Damages Claims), which highlighted the growing reliance on third party funding in the Netherlands.
In September 2022, the European Parliament adopted a Resolution on Responsible Private Funding of Litigation, urging the European Commission to consider stricter regulation of TPLF. In response, the Commission commissioned this in-depth Mapping Study, which analyses existing legal frameworks, practical experiences, and the divergent approaches among Member States.
From our research group, Jos Hoevenaars acted as national co-reporter, and Xandra Kramer contributed as a member of the advisory board. The findings of this study will play a key role in shaping the future policy debate on TPLF regulation in the EU.
Published: November 3, 2022
On 7 December 2022 (10-13 hrs) the team of the Vici project ‘Affordable Access to Justice’ at Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University (Rotterdam), organised a fruitful online research seminar ‘Third Party Funding: Trends, Developments and the Future.’
The seminar included two presentations on two of the articles in the recently published special issue of Erasmus Law Review, edited by Vici members Professor Xandra Kramer (Erasmus School of Law) and Associate Professor Masood Ahmed (University of Leicester, UK) on Global Developments and Challenges in Costs and Funding of Civil Justice. Dr David Capper (Queen’s University, Belfast) and Professor Michale Legg (UNSW, Sydney) presented their respective papers on third party funding in Australia and Ireland.
This seminar kicked off with the launch of the new book Frontiers in Civil Justice - Privatisation, Monetisation and Digitisation (Elgar 2022); an edited collection of essays from the ERC project Building EU Civil Justice. The editors, Xandra Kramer, Jos Hoevenaars, Betül Kas and Erlis Themeli introduced the book and posed questions on the questions on the main themes of the book to Prof. Stefaan Voet (Leuven University).