Funding litigation to achieve social and environmental impact
The BwB Talk Series gives our international network the opportunity to engage with and learn from innovative leaders in impact, finance, and the environment. The deep knowledge and experience shared across the series provides new perspectives, strengthens our market intelligence, and generates new ideas.
“We set out to demonstrate that commercial litigation can be an attractive investment and a powerful tool for positive change across many impact areas and jurisdictions.”
This innovative concept is the central thesis of Aristata Capital, the world’s first impact litigation funder. As CEO Robert Ryan explained, a fundamental belief for Aristata is that “we have to attract private capital to solve the significant social and environmental problems we’re all facing”.
Robert and Aristata’s Chief Investment Officer, Jack Naylor, offered a fascinating in-depth look at how Aristata’s approach and performance demonstrate that investment and high-quality litigation can be brought together to drive positive systemic change at scale.
Jack shared insights into the fund’s investment and operating principles, including how potential cases are evaluated based on specific outcomes, replicability, and potential for influencing wider behavioural change.
“Every claim that we fund must generate positive and measurable social or environmental impact and deliver an attractive return for the fund’s investors. But we also have the requirement that the claimants must receive the significant majority of what’s recovered...This is crucial from an impact point of view and for the credibility of the fund.”
The discussion also highlighted the challenges of navigating the legal landscape, including political influences on judicial outcomes, and the necessity of maintaining a diverse portfolio across jurisdictions. Despite these challenges, however, the pair noted encouraging movement towards “increasing awareness of and demand for litigation funding focused on impact”.
Sincere thanks to Jack and Robert for an informative and engaging conversation.
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