In the US, Senator Tillis has proposed a bill that would tax litigation funding into submission. Our view is that this is the wrong way to go about the debate on whether litigation funding is good or not. The courts are shaping litigation funding, and government should choose to regulate if it wants to - not subscribe to the interests of large corporations that realise the liability they created can now come back to haunt them.

When assessing litigation funding returns, time to return is the most difficult factor to assess. There is a wide range of returns; and returns can go long, but it is reasonable to expect that it will take an average of 3.7 years for cash to do a round trip - but that may mean it takes 7 years from start to finish.

In the UK, when law firms work for clients on no-win-no-fee arrangements they are, effectively, insuring their clients if there is an adverse costs award against the client. The Civil Justice Counsel has identified that some law firms should be FCA-regulated. We agree where law firms are insuring adverse costs awards against their clients.