We offer a selection of key market developments from last month
The UK litigation funding market gets a boost from proposed legislation to reverse case law
The Litigation Funding Agreements (Enforceability) Bill has started its Parliamentary progress. Its intent is to reverse the UK Supreme Court's judgment in the recent PACCAR decision that litigation funding agreements which give funders a share of the damages are damages-based agreements, making many unenforceable. The effect of the legislation should make it easier for the public and consumers to obtain third-party financial support for complex litigation, thus improving access to class action funding.
This is particularly welcome news for KP Law, a new firm owned by litigation funder Asertis, and which combines the UK teams of 2 US class action law firms, Keller Postman and Lanier Longstaff Hedar & Roberts. The new firm brings product liability and competition law expertise together with practices focused on data breach, workers' rights and financial mis-selling to focus on collective redress opportunities.
While CMS Cameron McKenna opens its 10th UK office in Leeds, with a focus on real estate, Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner is to make redundant 50 business services people in its UK and US bases. This is its third set of lay-offs in 6 years. No lawyers are impacted. BCLP has particular strengths in real estate.
The EU takes a lead on AI regulation; and the dream of the pan-Nordic firm takes a step back
More new legislation is being enacted, this time the Artificial Intelligence Act approved by the European Parliament, which establishes rules on how AI systems will be used in the EU in areas such as policing, labour, education and migration. Fines of up to 7% of global turnover will be exacted for failures to comply. There will be a European AI Office to assist compliance. It will not be until 2027 that the Act's rules are fully in force.
Another AI development as Thomson Reuters launches CoCounsel Core in the UK. This is a legal AI assistant which helps lawyers with tasks such as summarising and drafting documents and conducting research. Firms such as Addleshaw Goddard and Linklaters have already deployed the resource.
Hannes Snellman, based in Helsinki, opened in Stockholm in 2008 and then in Copenhagen in 2010. The firm was seen as a rare model of pan-Nordic integration, rivalled recently only by Schjødt, which pushed out of Norway to open first in Stockholm and then Copenhagen. Hannes Snellman closed Copenhagen in 2015 and has now announced its Swedish and Finnish offices will separate as a result of divergent business strategies, though continuing to cooperate, and for the moment operating under the same brand. The pan-Nordic model appears to have lost a believer.
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