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OAN Commentary by: Adonis Hoffman
Monday, February 9, 2026
You have seen the ads.
A faceless corporation. Injured consumers. A heroic law firm promising justice. The script is familiar, the emotion calibrated, the villain pre-selected.
What you do not see is who paid for the message.
Behind many of today’s most consequential lawsuits—cases that reshape industries, raise prices, and distort risk—neither the plaintiff nor the lawyer is calling the shots. That power often sits offstage, in the hands of undisclosed investors who bankroll litigation as a financial asset. Operating through layered and sometimes offshore structures, these backers pursue returns measured in multiples, not justice, and quietly influence how long cases last and how high the pressure rises.
Court filings tell one story. Headlines tell another. Yet when lawsuits become investment vehicles, a more troubling question emerges: who is really using the courts, and to what end?
Litigation funders point out that they play a necessary role in the justice system by expanding access to courts. Many plaintiffs cannot afford long, complex cases against well-funded companies. Funding, they say, allows legitimate claims to move forward.
While access to justice is a vital principle, the scale and intent of today’s commercial litigation finance is an entirely different matter. Large litigation finance firms now serve up lawsuits to investors as a portfolio asset class. Annual reports and investor presentations emphasize internal rates of return and diversification benefits – terms typically used for capital investments not corporate lawsuits. One of the largest litigation funders in the nation has told shareholders that money recovered from cases is reinvested to grow returns across its portfolio. That language reflects a societal shift wherein lawsuits are treated as financial products, not just efforts to resolve disputes.
By any measure, this is a far cry from the principles of justice, right and wrong.
Big money changes how lawsuits are fought. When investors finance cases, their profit goals often influence what happens next. Many funding deals give investors a say in whether a case can settle, or require a certain return before settlement is allowed. Even when investors do not have a formal veto, their expectations still matter. Lawyers backed by outside money feel less pressure to settle early. Time stops being a problem. In some cases, dragging things out becomes part of the plan.
Antitrust and competition disputes involving large tech and industrial companies show how this works in practice. In a recent case, court filings revealed a clear clash of interests. The plaintiff wanted to settle. The funder did not. Allowing the case to end would have reduced the funder’s expected return, so litigation continued. Funded plaintiffs often push ahead with broad discovery and trial preparation even after the courts narrow the claims. Legal costs climb as a result of expert and document demands. American companies and their insurers pay the price, and that often gets passed on to the consuming public.
Securities litigation can be similar. After sharp stock drops, shareholder suits often resist early mediation, even when settlement offers fall within available insurance coverage. Longer cases tend to produce larger returns. For insurers that cover directors and officers, this creates unpredictable reserves unrelated to the strength of the case. Those costs do not vanish. They reappear later as higher premiums for companies and, ultimately, for the consumers who rely on them.
Mass-tort cases show how this affects more than just the parties to the litigation. Outside funding helps pay for major 24/7 advertising campaigns that pull in large numbers of claims very quickly. Advertising has always existed, but something new has changed the game. Funders can now finance these claims in bulk and hold onto them for as long as it takes. Cases do not have to move quickly. Even weak claims can be kept alive alongside stronger ones to increase pressure to settle. Foreign money often makes this possible by absorbing the cost of waiting. Legal expenses pile up long before fault is ever decided, and settlements are driven more by leverage than by liability.
Foreign involvement raises the stakes, not because foreign money is intrinsically bad, but because it is usually hidden. Many litigation funding arrangements run through tax-havens like the Cayman Islands, Jersey, or Luxembourg, where it can be hard to see who really owns or controls the money due to bank secrecy laws. Investors can include pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, or foreign-government-linked entities looking to diversify. Courts usually do not know who is behind the funding. The defending companies rarely know, and juries never do. That lack of transparency has started to concern judges as well. Some federal courts now require parties to disclose litigation funding so judges can identify the real parties in interest and manage potential conflicts, including standing orders used by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Because of these practices, there is a growing concern for national security. Lawsuits force companies to hand over information through discovery. In most business or regulatory settings, confidentiality can be negotiated. But in litigation, disclosure is compulsory and often adversarial. Protective orders exist, but they often come after documents are produced. Sensitive material is frequently turned over before courts resolve how much should be shared. When foreign investors have a financial stake in lawsuits against U.S. defense contractors or technology firms, for example, they can gain indirect access to valuable information in a lawful way. This is not spying. It is a weakness created by the secrecy allowed by our current system. Patent and trade-secret cases illustrate the danger, since discovery can require companies to produce source code, technical designs, supplier data, and internal research long before the court can set reasonable limits.
Foreign-funded lawsuits introduce unknown players whose profit goals have little to do with resolving disputes. That makes losses harder to predict. American insurance companies are forced to react. Their pricing depends on knowing who is involved in a case and what motivates them. Reinsurers respond by raising prices and tightening terms, and insurers must use more capital to cover the uncertainty. Policymakers have pointed to “social inflation,” driven in part by litigation behavior, as a reason losses keep growing. Reinsurers have reported that U.S. commercial casualty losses are rising much faster than the broader economy, adding tens of billions of dollars in extra liability costs across the industry.
At the end of the day, consumers end up paying the price. When lawsuits become more unpredictable and expensive, insurance premiums for average consumers go up. Auto, business, and professional insurance are priced across the system, not case by case. Families never see a line item called a “litigation funder surcharge,” but the effect is the same. Higher legal costs lead to higher prices and fewer coverage choices for small businesses and consumer households. Beyond politics or policy, it boils down to a matter of dollars and cents for these consumers.
Requiring third party litigation funders to disclose their interests is a practical, common-sense solution. It does not ban litigation funding or tilt the scales toward defendants. It simply requires that anyone with a financial stake in a lawsuit should be identified. Judges can better manage conflicts and discovery. Defendants can understand who is driving settlement decisions. Insurers can price risk more accurately. Other financial markets already require this kind of transparency. Courts should not be the exception.
Let’s face it, trust in the courts fades when cases look managed for profit rather than decided on the merits. Requiring disclosure would not shut the courthouse doors. Plaintiffs could still get funding. Investors could still earn returns. Insurers could still provide coverage. What would change is honesty about who is involved. Transparency strengthens the system without favoring any side. It protects legitimate claims while exposing hidden influence.
Our legal system derives its authority not from force or finance, but from public confidence that justice is being done in the open and fairly. Until that happens, one basic question will continue to hang over America’s courts, and over every major case that shapes prices, jobs, and markets: who is really behind those biggest lawsuits?
(Views expressed by guest commentators may not reflect the views of OAN or its affiliates.)
Adonis Hoffman is a lawyer, analyst, and independent counsel who served in senior roles at the FCC and in the U.S. House of Representatives
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