Litigation Funding: What Is It Good For? Apparently Something Part II

As Partner Ben Pilbrow detailed in his previous article, the Post Office Group case was made possible by litigation funding. However, there are still criticisms of this funding as a malign influence rather than an access point to justice.

We recently wrote about how Mr Bates, the lead claimant in the Post Office Group Litigation, publicly acknowledged the important role that litigation funding played in their case. The historic win for sub-postmasters was made possible not by legal aid but by funds invested by Therium, a commercial funder.

The funding allowed the sub-postmasters, already financially crippled by the Horizon scandal, to get their claim off the ground and fund the significant legal costs of a lengthy litigation. It's believed that the Post Office spent in excess of £100 million, while the sub-postmasters received only £12 million of the £58 million settlement, with the rest going to their lawyers and Therium.