Tets Ishikawa of LionFish argues that the time has now come to revisit the recoverability of uplifts, premiums and funding costs, using several recent cases and an analogy involving a schoolyard bully to make his point.
Litigation funder Therium should be jointly and severally liable for indemnity costs after a specialist currency debt management firm unsuccessfully sued HSBC, the UK High Court has ruled. The funder agreed to back the claim by ECU Group against a number of HSBC entities over allegations that traders used knowledge of ECU’s foreign exchange orders to make a profit between 2004 and 2006, in a practice known as ‘front running’. However, ECU’s claim was ruled to be time barred by Mrs Justice Moulder, who held that the company had ‘sufficient knowledge’ to plead its case in 2006.
Costs lawyers should be more widely retained to stop firms from inflating their costs when they are working on a contingency basis, according to a new report by the Costs Lawyer Standards Board. One litigation funder told researchers that costs never came in on budget and were often overestimated. A specialist professional negligence insurer said they were ’desperate for claims to be presented honestly, based on evidence’. The message from both was that, in their view, solicitors’ firms were often presenting wildly inflated claims based on their interests in a CFA and this was not always acting in the best interests of the client.’
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