The case against third-party funding in ISDS

Boston College Law School | 30 April 2018

The case against third-party funding in ISDS: Executive summary

by Frank J. Garcia, Hyun Ju Cho, Tara Santosuosso, Randall Scarlett, Rachel Denae Thrasher

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis and the demand by speculative finance for new investment vehicles, Third-party funding (TPF) has discovered the BIT/ISDS system. The high costs and potentially high damages characteristic of ISDS cases have made it a new and highly attractive market for TPF. It is difficult to estimate the scale of TPF in ISDS today, since TPF funders generally prefer not to disclose their role to the other parties or to the adjudicators and argue strenuously that no clear disclosure requirements exist. However, available evidence suggest s an already significant role, with TPF (actual or alleged) at issue in several recent ISDS cases.

Read the full paper here (pdf)