High Court decision underscores how funders’ enforceability battles continue to reverberate through long-running litigation

A recent High Court decision marks another significant chapter in the fallout from the PACCAR ruling, underscoring how funders’ enforceability battles continue to reverberate through long-running litigation. The High Court declined to debar Nicholas Thomas—a former Orb claimant who was funded by Harbour in the “Orb Litigation”—from participating in an upcoming “Enforceability Hearing” concerning whether Harbour’s 2011 funding agreement remains valid post-PACCAR but ordered him to provide £200,000 in security for costs. The court found Mr Thomas had failed to give a credible account of the involvement of convicted fraudster Dr Gerald Smith, whose fingerprints appeared in the metadata of Mr Thomas’s witness statements, and noted his own reliance on Czech funder LitFin to finance his cross-application challenging Harbour’s entitlement. While critical of Mr Thomas’s conduct and history of collusive attempts to frustrate earlier judgments, Henshaw J held that raising the PACCAR argument was not inherently abusive and that the court would benefit from hearing both sides on the issue.

Read the decision here.