Trade Court Wants Suit Funders Revealed: Litigation Finance

Happy Friday! The world of international trade lawsuits just got a lot more transparent.

The Court of International Trade, home to many of the disputes over Trump’s tariff regime, added a section to its corporate disclosure form this month requiring parties to identify their litigation funders.

It’s not clear yet if funders are actually backing these trade fights, but with big refunds on the line, you can bet they’re watching. I’ll be keeping an eye on the disclosures to see if anything interesting pops up.

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This week, I also spoke with Erick Robinson, one of the founders of the new funding trade group, the American Civil Accountability Alliance, on Bloomberg Law’s On The Merits podcast.

We dove into how the industry reacted when Sen. Thom Tillis’ litigation finance tax bill nearly made it into the summer’s tax and spending package — and how that drama motivated him to start the new organization. We also discussed what’s next for the group and how they plan to tackle other legislative efforts to regulate the industry.

What I’m Reading

• Or, in this case, watching: Burford Capital’s vice chair David Perla was interviewed on The Insurer TV about the intersection of litigation funding and insurance. It’s an interesting conversation: insurance carriers have publicly opposed the industry, yet funders are also their customers.
• Sal Nuzzo, executive director of Consumers Defense, wrote an op-ed in Florida Politics opposing a bill in the state that would regulate litigation finance. He says the bill would tilt the playing field in favor of massive corporations.
• On the other side, Tom Gaitens, executive director of Florida Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, touted the bill as smart civil justice reform in the Tampa Free Press. He said it would shine much needed light on the industry.

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If there’s one lesson to learn from the first year of the Trump administration’s second term, it’s this: Don’t get complacent.

As part of “Tactical Influence,” our special report on how companies and K Street get things done under President Trump, Kate Ackley and Isabel Gottlieb report on how lobbying efforts are being retooled.

Executive branch decision-making is increasingly centralized with Trump himself. K Street firms with close ties to the president have seen their revenue skyrocket. The ecosystem of people with real influence has narrowed. On some issues, only those with access to Mar-a-Lago or the West Wing are worth talking to.

Here are few guidelines as we enter year two:

• ACCESS IS KING: “You have to engage in very high-level conversations with the administration and be willing to put skin in the game to achieve whatever goals you’re trying to achieve,” says Mark Williams, a former Republican Hill staffer, now a partner at the lobbying firm Ferox Strategies.
• DITCH THE SAME-OLD STRATEGY: “Companies that have long prioritized Congressional relationships or treated administration relationships as a matter of procurement expertise are finding a need to better understand how the Trump administration thinks and operates,” says May Mailman, a former White House policy strategist who left the Trump administration last summer to launch her own firm.
• AGENCIES IN LINE: “We’re seeing clear shifts across government: Agencies that once acted independently are now more closely aligned with the administration, and changes in government staffing mean the long‑standing experts organizations relied on aren’t always in place anymore,” according to Nneka Chiazor, president and CEO of the Public Affairs Council.
• BRING IN THE BIG GUNS: Lobbyists are telling clients to ramp up one of the more successful strategies for influencing this administration: Send in the CEO.
• DONATE: Companies have also encountered multiple opportunities to donate to fundraising efforts the president favors, including the White House ballroom.

A company without a lobbyist schooled and practiced in the new playbook “is outside looking in, a day late and a dollar short,” said Manuel Ortiz, a Democrat who works with GOP-connected firms and the founder of VantageKnight LLC.

Plus, Greg Giroux reports on how the midterms will change corporate America’s ability to influence Washington.

Commentary & Opinion

Doctrine of Equivalents Is Strong Patentee Tool, but Needs Care

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