Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Alex Agee co-authored a white paper analyzing how U.S. courts protect the confidentiality of litigation funding agreements and non-deal documents. Despite aggressive actions by defense counsel to request disclosure of this type of information, the authors found that the majority of U.S. courts have ruled that plaintiffs can keep litigation funding sources confidential.
The authors examined 52 available U.S. court decisions through July 2021 to assess how courts ruled in this matter. According to their research, in 43 of the 52 cases (83%), the courts denied any significant discovery related to litigation funding or allowed discovery only on a redacted basis.
Speaking of the results, Alex said “One of the primary takeaways from this analysis is that unless a court has specific rules requiring disclosure about funding, the normal protection provided to work product information also applies to protect most litigation funding information.”
More details about the findings can be found here. The full paper, “Litigation Funding and Confidentiality: A Comprehensive Analysis of Current Case Law,” is available online. The white paper was published by Westfleet Advisors, a litigation finance advisory firm.