By Tom Gaitens
What if I told you that foreign countries are playing a financial role in investing in litigation moving through Florida’s courtrooms? I’m sure if you knew of this troubling practice you would want the Florida legislature to take actionable steps to regulate it. This year, the Florida Legislature had an opportunity to bring transparency to this practice, but they didn’t take it and instead chose to leave our state vulnerable to foreign interference and influence.
Through funding litigation against certain industries, foreign entities can simultaneously hold influence over Florida’s civil justice system and economy. This troubling trend is growing and must be stopped.
Given the dire nature of the threat, there presumably should be bipartisan support for reform, so why has nothing been done by our legislators in Tallahassee?
Third-party litigation reform seems like it should be low-hanging fruit for legislators, as the strategic importance is echoed by left and right alike, as well as non-political defense industry insiders.
But the truth is that Florida’s trial bar has a crippling hold on our legislators and its influence is strong. The trial bar stands to benefit from the generation of additional litigation through third-party litigation funding, and regulating this practice would mean less money in their pockets.
This session, the Florida Legislature squandered an opportunity to enact legislation that would have made it illegal for foreign powers to influence Florida’s courts while at the same time protecting our national security. The legislation would have banned foreign governments from involvement in any decision related to a civil action. H.B. 1179 and S.B. 1276 would have served to stop foreign actors from interfering with civil justice in Florida.
This bill was Florida’s chance to rein in this troubling trend that will only grow. Bill sponsors Reps. Overdorf, Gregory, and Sen. Collins cited in their work a Swiss Re Insurance estimate that third-party litigation funding will become a $30 billion industry by 2028, showing the rapid and accelerating growth of this global multi-million-dollar industry and why it must be regulated now.
It is incredibly disappointing and frustrating that our lawmakers didn’t have our best interest at heart and instead prioritized the interest of the powerful trial bar instead. Hopefully, Florida can pursue this legislation in the next session. Our lawmakers must take this issue more seriously and curb the influence of foreign investors in our civil justice system.
It is not only a strategic miss to kick this legislative can down the road, but also more importantly ‘time lost’ in addressing and closing loopholes which exposes Floridians to foreign actors who aim to do us harm.
Tom Gaitens is the Executive Director of Florida Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (FL CALA)
