Congress Debates Foreign Cash in US Courtrooms: Litigation Finance

Happy Friday! It’s been a busy time for Congress, with one litigation finance bill debated before the House Judiciary Committee this week and another likely on deck. (Oh, and they voted to release the Epstein files.) Let’s get into it.

The Protecting Our Courts from Foreign Manipulation Act of 2025 got a hearing at the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, which voted to send it to the full House. It would bar sovereign wealth funds and foreign governments from funding US lawsuits as third parties, directly or indirectly, and would require other non-American investors to disclose their participation.

Though it still has a ways to go before it becomes law, the bill is already making some funders squirm. Two big players — Burford Capital and Fortress Investment Group — have known ties to sovereign wealth funds. Expect some heated lobbying.

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Another bill, the Litigation Transparency Act of 2025, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), was supposed to be heard during a markup hearing on Thursday but was not addressed. Issa’s aide told Bloomberg Law that he thinks there will be a future hearing and that transparency is an important issue.

The measure, which would require disclosure of litigation finance in civil cases, has received pushback from prominent conservative nonprofits like the Alliance Defending Freedom.

I’ll be watching to see how these bills progress — and what the backlash might look like. Stay tuned.

Argentina 🔥 Take

The $16 billion court ruling in the YPF case — a lawsuit that Burford is involved in — should be reversed by the 2nd Circuit because it disrupts the global legal order, according to an Insight we published this week.

“Courts of one nation don’t seize or sit in judgment on another state’s property, especially assets within that state’s territory. It would be akin to a Chinese court ordering the US to ship the gold from Fort Knox to Shanghai to pay private creditors—Washington’s response would be swift and furious,” Anne-Marie Slaughter, president and CEO of New America and a former law professor at Harvard and Princeton, and William Burke-White, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote.

Also Read: Anchorage Raises a Rare Fund With Just One Bet on Argentine Suit

What I’m Reading

• Alan Sears, CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, wrote an opinion piece in The Hill about his opposition to Issa’s litigation measure. He said the bill would expose private donors, nonprofits, and individual litigants to public scrutiny.
• Northwestern University Law Review published an article this week by Professor Seth Katsuya Endo arguing litigants should disclose the existence of a litigation funding agreement and provisions giving any control over the litigation to the funder.
• The Law Society Gazette reported that litigation funder Innsworth is funding a £1 billion claim against online property information company Rightmove in the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal.

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EXCLUSIVE: Jailed and Pregnant

When Chasity Congious went into labor for the first time, there were no doctors or nurses. No clean blankets to swaddle the coming baby. There were no family members, no friends.

Congious wasn’t even in a hospital. She was alone in a jail cell.

The baby girl was born into the pant leg of her beige uniform on May 17, 2020, in the Tarrant County, Texas, jail. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck — a common problem often resolved with a quick unraveling by a doctor’s hands.

But no one was there to help. Her daughter, named Zenorah, did not survive.

Horrific scenes like this are unfolding in jails across the country, according to a yearlong investigation from Bloomberg Law and NBC News that reveals systemic failures. In a first-of-its-kind analysis of federal civil rights lawsuits from 2017 to 2024, reporters found at least 54 pregnant women or their families have alleged severe mistreatment or medical neglect in jails.

Pregnant women are locked up, often for petty crimes, their cries for help ignored. They are miscarrying or giving birth in excruciating pain into cell toilets or onto filthy jail floors. Newborns are suffering infections and long-lasting health issues. Some babies die.

Read the exclusive investigation

Shawna Tanner said she thinks about her baby every day and wonders what color eyes he had. She never got to see them.

Photographer: Annie Flanagan/Bloomberg Law

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