Akin Gump Partners Share Key Takeaways from Global Class Actions Symposium
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Akin Gump litigation partner Richard Hornshaw and financial services regulatory partner Ezra Zahabi both chaired panel sessions at this year’s ICLG.com Global Class Actions Symposium, hosted in Amsterdam from November 17 to 18. The annual event for international class actions specialists played host to top-level discussion and debate. The Symposium was reported on by Commercial Dispute Resolution (CDR), with Hornshaw and Zahabi quoted in articles that provided an overview of the events themes.
Richard Hornshaw chaired the panel session “Funding International Collective Proceedings” with discussion points and conclusions including:
- Class actions are developing rapidly, but not uniformly across jurisdictions.
- Litigation funding has been an important feature of this growth, given the scale/complexity of actions as well as the time, cost and legal risk involved.
- There are a number of other drivers for the growth of collective actions, including legislative and policy developments, judicial support, social trends (including that investor sensitivity that ESG cases can help drive better corporate governance), utilization of social media and potential rewards.
- There are some headwinds for funders, including the Voss Report, and the emergence of features associated with a more developed market, e.g. carriage disputes in opt-out claims, but, overall, the expectation is that the litigation funding market will continue to grow.
Ezra Zahabi chaired the panel session “ESG Claims” and concluded from the session that “legal and regulatory changes suggest that ESG litigation will be a growth area in the near term and litigation funders and practitioners alike are following developments with keen interest.”
The CDR article reporting on the scale and complexity of the collective actions market and significance of third-party funders, in which Hornshaw is quoted can be read here. The article covering the rise of ESG litigation in which Zahabi is quoted can be read here.
