Civil Justice Council Review of Litigation Funding - Where Are We Now?

Introduction

The Civil Justice Council’s Review of Litigation Funding - Final Report, produced at the Lord Chancellor’s request following R (PACCAR Inc) v Competition Appeal Tribunal, made 58 recommendations for reform. On 17 December 2025, the Government accepted the two most important: legislation confirming that litigation funding agreements are not damages-based agreements and proportionate regulation of funders.

Nothing has happened since. The May 2026 King’s Speech contained no funding measure, no timetable has been given and the promised consultation has not appeared. The courts, meanwhile, have settled the question that mattered most commercially and regulators outside the Ministry of Justice have begun to move.

This webinar takes stock of that gap: what is settled, what is not and what practitioners should do now rather than wait for a Bill that may look very different when it arrives.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• Where Reform Actually Stands - The Implementation Gap:
• Prospective effect only - what the December 2025 response did and did not promise
• Why pre-PACCAR percentage agreements will not be saved by statute
• No Bill in the King’s Speech and what the Minister told the Select Committee
• The Courts Have Answered the Question Parliament Has Not:
• The four conjoined appeals in Sony v Neill and why the CAT never struck these agreements down
• Multiples, natural caps and contingent percentage clauses: calculation, not source of payment
• Gutmann v Apple, the Supreme Court refusals and the open question of severance
• Regulation Arriving from a Different Direction:
• The SRA’s consultation on funding in consumer claims
• The DBT’s CAT opt-out consultation and lifting the prohibition on DBAs
• Recommendation 54 delivered by competition policy rather than justice policy
• The CJC’s Regulatory Blueprint - What Remains on the Table:
• A statutory scheme, the Lord Chancellor as regulator and a future move to the FCA
• Capital adequacy, anti-money laundering, disclosure and the ban on funder control
• Consumer and collective safeguards - and the 56 recommendations still unanswered
• Costs, Adverse Costs and the Court Rules:
• Mandatory budgeting for funded group actions and a Pre-Action Protocol for mass claims
• Recoverability of funding costs in exceptional circumstances
• Codifying the Arkin cap and security for costs
• Contingency Fees, Portfolio Funding and Other Mechanisms:
• One simplified contingency fee regime to replace CFAs and DBAs
• Portfolio funding as regulated lending - the lessons of SSB Law
• Crowdfunding, pure funding, legal expenses insurance and an Access to Justice Fund
• Practical Steps Before the Bill Arrives:
• Auditing the funded caseload for agreements statute will not save
• Drafting for automatic conversion on reversal
• Funder due diligence and responding to the open consultations