About Fair Civil Justice
Fair Civil Justice is the leading voice for British business and consumers to help level the playing field in group litigation.
We do that by promoting alternatives to litigation that are faster and more effective in resolving disputes.
Seema Kennedy OBE
Seema is the Executive Director of Fair Civil Justice.
She began her career as a lawyer in the City of London before working in business and frontline politics. During her time as a Member of Parliament she served as a minister in the Department of Health and the Home Office, and also as Prime Minister Theresa May’s Parliamentary aide during the Brexit negotiations.
Why It Matters – The Issues Unpacked
The UK today is moving towards an increasingly predatory claims culture; one that is opaque, where regulation has struggled to keep pace; and is in favour of funders and lawyers. The evidence from the U.S. and other countries with an overly litigious system is clear; it is harmful to consumers, employers and the wider economy.
The Threat To Consumers
More and more people in the UK today are being encouraged to join legal claims against businesses for an alleged wrong they have suffered – sometimes without any knowledge or consent.
Since 2015, competition class actions with more than 500 million class members have been brought in the UK, which translates to more than 8 actions per person (CMS Class Action Report 2024).
From scrolling through social media at home to listening to the radio on the way to work, it is almost impossible to avoid the barrage of advertisements from law firms promising easy returns with no risks. But this is not the whole story.
Litigation is extremely expensive and comes with significant risks. Even if a claimant is successful in court, they will need to pay for their lawyers via deductions to their settlements and damages awards, at enormous cost.
For instance, in in the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, the lawyers and funders took home 80 percent – £46m of the total damages, leaving the affected sub-postmasters with just 20 percent.
The Economic Impact
In 2024, seven in ten UK businesses said that they were concerned about rising litigation. Nearly three quarters reported an increase in cases brought against their companies over the past five years and three in five anticipate a further rise over the next 12 months.
Small and medium sized businesses, which make up the backbone of the UK economy, are having to devote time and resources towards fending off litigation, when they could be investing this capital in R&D, new factories, and jobs and apprenticeships. By failing to tackle the issue, we risk creating an environment as litigious as that of the U.S., where SMEs bear 53% of the cost of litigation – amounting to around $181 billion annually.
The shift towards a more litigious environment has also had a clear impact on global businesses looking to invest in Britain. Many of these companies create millions of jobs in the UK, contribute significant tax revenues to fund public services, and deliver world-class products and services for consumers. Yet, they are increasingly under attack by class action lawsuits.
The role of Third-Party Litigation Funding
In recent years experts have raised concerns about the role of the Third-Party Litigation Funding (TPLF) sector in financing of the majority these new class action claims.
The UK is now home to more than 70 litigation funding providers, who are collectively funding claims worth over £120 billion. Many of these claims are targeted against British SMEs, which play a crucial role in creating jobs and make enormous contributions towards vital public services.
There is no formal regulation of the sector, despite the British public overwhelmingly being in favour of stronger regulation around the use of TPLF in class action lawsuits. According to a national poll carried out by leading research agency Survation in October 2024, the British public called for more transparency in the sector. Two thirds said that it should be a requirement to disclose who is funding class action lawsuits in the country, and three quarters said that litigation funders should be required to publicly disclose information about their ownership when investing in British legal cases.
Lawyers and funders are also typically paid ahead of claimants when group actions are successful. 65 percent of the public said that this was unfair and that consumers should be paid first.
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