Vol 14 (2017) - Issue 5

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What Price for Justice? Litigation Funding in Ireland

Introduction
Third party funding of litigation is common place and legitimate in many common law jurisdictions. But this is not the position in Ireland. The Irish Supreme Court considered the issue most recently in Persona Digital Telephony Ltd v. The Minister for Public Enterprise. The Court confirmed that professional third party funding was unlawful in Ireland as offending against the rules of maintenance and champerty. The case was the first decision by the Irish courts directly concerning the validity of professional third party funding. Irish legislation in this area is antiquated, with the most recent of the three relevant statutes enacted almost four hundred years ago. The earliest of the three cannot even be accurately dated.