Articles

Analysis: Preliminary Draft Law – Representative Actions for the Protection of Consumers’ Collective Interests

Analysis of the Preliminary Draft Law on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers, which the Council of Ministers approved on December 20, 2022. This Law involves the transposition of Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2020 on representative actions for the protection of the collective interests of consumers. The Draft Bill on Representative Actions for the Protection of the Collective Interests of Consumers brings new developments in the field of collective actions, which we now refer to as representative actions. The Directive guarantees that all the Member…

2022: A Year in Review for Litigation Funding

As we prepare to say goodbye to 2022, we would like to pause for a moment and reflect on the Litigation Funding related milestones that have defined the year. Regulations 2022 has been signaled by regulatory developments for the Litigation Funding Industry. Importantly, on September the European Parliament approved a set of recommendations to the Commission on Responsible Private Funding of Litigation. The Resolution recognizes that litigation funding is a growing practice in the EU and calls for a proposal for a Directive to establish common minimum standards on third-party commercial litigation funding addressing the transparency, fairness, and proportionality of…

Truck cartel: The León Court of Appeals rules in accordance with the CJEU’s interpretation

RM vs DAF TRUCKS and VOLVO AB The implementation of Directive 2014/104, designed to regulate tort actions for competition law infringements, gave rise to several interpretational challenges around Article 22, which establishes a prohibition on the retroactive application of the Directive’s substantive provisions. The key issue was to determine which provisions were substantive and which were not. In the context of this interpretational problem, the Provincial Court of León referred a question to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling that would clarify certain questions that were not entirely made clear regarding the characteristics…

Litigation Funding Regulation proposed
Guido Demarco for Expansion about the New Resolution on Responsible private funding of litigation

How to regulate Litigation Funding is a current trend lately. In this regard, Guido Demarco, Director of Stonward, has published an op-ed in the Spanish newspaper Expansión talking about the new Resolution approved by the European Parliament on Responsible Private Funding of Litigation. The Resolution, dated 13 September 2022, recognizes that litigation funding is a growing practice in the EU and calls for a proposal for a Directive to establish common minimum standards on third-party commercial litigation funding addressing the transparency, fairness and proportionality of this tool. The problem, according to Guido, is that the proposed regulation is prone to “over-regulation”. The…

Stonward, ranks Band 1 for Litigation Support – Chambers & Partners

Chambers 2022 Litigation Support, Europe-wide Litigation Funding: Brokers ranking has been announced. We are pleased and thrilled to share that Stonward has been ranked Band 1 in this ranking, and that our Director, Guido Demarco, has also achieved it. Thank you to our clients for their feedback and thanks to the researchers for their hard-work 👏. See here the full ranking.

Demarco for Leader’s League: “Litigation funding can help balance the scales of justice”

Our Director and head of legal assets, Guido Demarco, explains in this Q&A for Leader’s League the sector’s growth and dispels some of the misconceptions surrounding it. Trends and innovations, “best friend” relationships between law firms and litigation finance firms, how can companies use litigation financing as a tool to help manage cash flows, and what should law firms know about the practice are some of the subject matters explained by Demarco. “We expect that 2022 will bring more regulatory developments, and although stakeholders usually welcome regulation to bring clear rules and transparency into the equation, there are concerns that…

Third party funding, IPA Peru
Arbitration experts agree: Litigation Funding does not generate frivolous lawsuits

The second International Congress on Litigation Funding (LF), organized by Stonward and the Peruvian Institute of Arbitration, highlighted some ideas: litigation funding does not generate frivolous claims, and the legislation being proposed by bodies such as the EU is prone to “over-regulation”. The experts who participated in the talk –specialists in third-party funding and/or specialized in the world of arbitration who have worked directly with funding– were: Antonio Bravo, partner in charge of the Litigation and Arbitration practice at Eversheds Sutherland in Spain; Daniel Rodríguez, partner and co-head of the arbitration and litigation practice at CMS Rodríguez-Azuero in Colombia; Guido…

Our Code of Conduct and Ethics

This code of conduct and ethics sets out standards of practice and behavior to be observed by the employees, officers, consultants, and other representatives of Stonward Litigaiton Funding in day-to-day operations.