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Law’s Financialization: Litigation Finance and Multilayer Access to Justice in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2018

Michael Molavi
Michael Molavi*
Affiliation:
The Legal Education Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of [email protected]
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Abstract

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, states around the world have experienced sustained growth in the emerging industry of litigation finance in light of the perceived insularity of courtrooms from the instabilities and fluctuations of financial markets. In Canada, this nascent industry has been dominated by class actions given the high costs, risk exposures, and attractive rewards associated with collective redress. Such investments have been legitimated as promoting access to justice, a fundamental human right. This paper traces the historical and contemporary development of this legal dynamic of financialization by documenting the progressive liberalization of maintenance and champerty laws from the nineteenth century to the current period through a series of case studies, before exploring the legal economics of the emerging industry in Canada. In so doing, this paper critically examines the impacts of law’s financialization on multilayer access to justice.

Résumé

Au lendemain de la crise financière mondiale, des États du monde entier ont été le théâtre d’une croissance soutenue de l’industrie émergente du financement de litiges, une croissance tributaire de l’insularité perçue des salles d’audience ainsi que des instabilités et des fluctuations des marchés financiers. Au Canada, cette industrie naissante a été dominée par les recours collectifs eu égard aux coûts élevés, à l’exposition aux risques et aux récompenses attrayantes qui sont tous associés auxdits recours collectifs. De tels investissements ont d’ailleurs été légitimés au nom de l’accès à la justice, un droit humain fondamental. Avant d’explorer l’économie juridique de cette industrie émergente au Canada, cet article illustre le développement historique et contemporain de la dynamique juridique de la financialisation en documentant la libéralisation progressive des lois sur le soutien abusif et la champartie entre le XIXe siècle et la période actuelle, et ce, à travers une série d’études de cas. Ce faisant, cet article examine, d’une manière critique, les impacts de la financialisation du droit sur l’accès à la justice à de multiples niveaux.

Keywords

financializationaccess to justicelitigation financeclass actionsthird party litigation fundingfinanciarisationaccès à la justicefinancement de litigesrecours collectifsle financement de litiges par un tiers
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , December 2018 , pp. 425 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association / Association Canadienne Droit et Société 2018 

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Footnotes

*

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.

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