Insights

Washington – June 10, 2025: Crowell & Moring partners Paul Haskel and Paul Muscutt, senior counsel Scott Lessne, and counsel John Laird authored a chapter entitled “An Overview of Litigation Funding” for the International Comparative Legal Guide – Lending & Secured Finance 2025 edition.

Washington – July 20, 2021: Crowell & Moring’s International Dispute Resolution Group has been included in the 14th edition of Global Arbitration Review's GAR 100, a guide to the top 100 law firms with international arbitration capabilities. GAR is one of the leading journals of public and private arbitration.

London – September 9, 2020: Crowell & Moring was shortlisted as a finalist in the International Arbitration Team of the Year category at the Legal Business Awards 2020, celebrating the best in the legal profession.

On 2 June 2025 the Civil Justice Council (a UK public body that advises on civil justice and civil procedure) (“CJC”) issued its Review of Litigation Funding Final Report (the “Report”). The CJC has provided comprehensive recommendations on the regulation and reform of litigation funding in England and Wales. The highlight recommendation of the Report is for the UK Government to remove third party litigation funding from the regulations and requirements of the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013 (“DBA Regulations”), reversing the judgment of the Supreme Court in PACCAR.[1] Meanwhile, the UK Court of Appeal has recently endorsed a position that the Competition Appeal Tribunal (“CAT”) may order that third party funders of collective proceedings be paid first from litigation proceeds before claimants according to waterfall provisions in their funding agreements.

On 18 September 2024, the UK Supreme Court handed down its judgment in UniCredit Bank GmbH v RusChemAlliance LLC [2024] UKSC 30.  The judgment considers several significant issues relevant to international arbitration.  Primarily, though, it reaffirms: (i) the English court’s strong support for arbitration, in general; (ii) the steps it is prepared to take to hold parties to their agreement to arbitrate; and (iii) the current position for determining the governing law of an arbitration agreement, in the absence of an express election by the parties.

On 19 March 2024, the Government followed through on a promise from the Ministry of Justice to introduce draft legislation to reverse the effect of  R (on the application of PACCAR Inc & Ors) v Competition Appeal Tribunal & Ors [2023] UKSC 28.  The effect of this ruling was discussed in our prior alert and follow on commentary discussing its effect on group competition litigation and initial government reform proposals. Should the bill pass, agreements to provide third party funding to litigation or advocacy services in England will no longer be required to comply with the Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013 (“DBA Regulations”) to be enforceable.