tegwick
74ec1622bf
Introduces specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md: independent, locally-licensed Enforcement Partners pursue unauthorized Commercial Use (License §3 violations) in their home jurisdiction for a Contingency Share of Recovery, so enforcement scales the way the framework's monetization already does - through aligned incentive rather than central litigation capacity. New terminology (Alleged Violation, Enforcement Action, Recovery, Contingency Share, Platform Share, Enforcement Registry, Enforcement Partner Agreement) plus a proposed enforcement-recovery Monetization Extension so Recovery flows into Development Credit through the existing accounting model rather than a parallel bucket. Flags the mechanism's central risk up front rather than assuming it away: lawyer contingency fees are not legal everywhere. Backed by workplans/TREV-WP-0005-enforcement-network-research.md (10 tasks); four executed this session with live web research: - Germany/EU: RVG §4a permits contingency fees only in three narrow gates, none fitting this fact pattern well - single-role Enforcement Partner is very likely not viable; France permits a fixed-fee-plus-uncapped-result- fee structure instead; EU litigation-funding regulation is proposed (2022 EP resolution) but not yet adopted. - US: contingency fees broadly permitted; practical precondition is timely copyright registration of the Milestone Release to unlock statutory damages/fee-shifting; Copyright Claims Board flagged as a lower-cost venue. - UK: Damages-Based Agreements cap fees at 50% for this case category - the concept's originally-proposed 50% Contingency Share lands exactly on this real statutory ceiling, the first jurisdiction where the figure is precisely validated rather than arbitrary. - Mechanism design: synthesizes the above into a single Enforcement Partner Agreement template with jurisdiction-conditional role structure (single-role vs. Litigation Funder/Local Counsel split), with a payment- flow diagram showing the Development Credit allocation is unaffected by which structure applies. Six of ten WP-0005 tasks remain open (Argentina, India, China, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the human-gated synthesis). Cross-referenced from README. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
42 lines
5 KiB
Markdown
42 lines
5 KiB
Markdown
# TREN Jurisdiction Research: United Kingdom
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**Document status:** Research artifact, Stage 0 (`workplans/TREV-WP-0005-enforcement-network-research.md` T03)
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**Not legal advice.** Findings drawn from web research (searched 2026-07-29); verify against current legislation and the Association of Litigation Funders' current Code of Conduct before drafting.
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---
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## 1. Damages-Based Agreements: the 50% figure is directly validated, but only for "all other cases"
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The UK's Damages-Based Agreements Regulations 2013 cap the maximum percentage of a client's damages a lawyer may recover as a fee at:
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- **25%** for personal injury claims (excluding damages for future care and loss);
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- **35%** for employment tribunal cases;
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- **50%** for **all other cases**.
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**Direct implication for TREN:** the Licensor's proposed 50% Contingency Share (`specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md` §5.5) is **exactly** the statutory maximum for a UK Damages-Based Agreement in the "all other cases" category — which an unauthorized-Commercial-Use claim (a commercial/IP matter, not personal injury or employment) would fall into. This is the first jurisdiction in this research pass where the Licensor's original figure is not just plausible but precisely at a real regulatory ceiling, not an arbitrary round number. Any UK Enforcement Partner Agreement should treat 50% as the maximum, not a safe default with headroom — a DBA at exactly 50% will attract the same scrutiny any fee arrangement pushing a statutory cap does, and should be reviewed by UK counsel rather than assumed compliant merely for equaling the cap rather than exceeding it.
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## 2. Conditional Fee Agreements as a second, more flexible structure
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Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs, "no win, no fee") are a separate, older mechanism: the lawyer's normal fee is payable only on success, plus a "success fee" uplift. Success fees are capped (e.g., no more than 100% of basic damages, with a separate 25% cap specifically for personal injury pain-and-suffering/past-loss damages). Unlike a DBA, a CFA's success fee is not itself calculated as a percentage of the client's damages recovered — it is an uplift on the lawyer's own fee.
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**Direct implication for TREN:** the UK offers **two** distinct structures TREN could use — a DBA (percentage-of-Recovery, capped at 50% for this case type) matching the Licensor's original framing directly, or a CFA (fee-plus-uplift, similar in shape to the German/French structured alternatives found in T01) as a fallback if a DBA's specific formal requirements are not met. The Enforcement Partner Agreement outline (T09) should probably default to a DBA structure for UK engagements specifically, since it maps onto the concept doc's existing terminology (Contingency Share as a percentage of Recovery) without modification, unlike Germany or France.
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## 3. Litigation funding: mature, self-regulated, and unencumbered by historical doctrine
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The UK's third-party litigation funding market is well-established. The historical champerty and maintenance doctrines, which once would have barred a stranger from funding another's litigation for a share of the proceeds, have been substantially set aside for commercial litigation funding by modern case law and market practice. The Association of Litigation Funders (ALF) maintains a Code of Conduct that funders can voluntarily join; as of the data point found in this pass (referencing a 2013-era count), only a minority of funders operating in the DBA space had actually signed up to the ALF Code, suggesting the UK funding market's self-regulation is real but not universal — worth checking current ALF membership figures before relying on ALF membership as a quality signal for a UK Litigation Funder in the Enforcement Registry (concept §10).
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**Direct implication for TREN:** the UK is, alongside the US, a jurisdiction where a single-role Enforcement Partner (or an ALF-Code-compliant Litigation Funder paired with counsel, if the parties prefer that structure for risk-sharing reasons unrelated to legal necessity) is workable without the German-style forced structural workaround.
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## 4. Summary for the feasibility matrix (T10)
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| Question | United Kingdom |
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|---|---|
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| Direct lawyer contingency fee available? | Yes, via a Damages-Based Agreement, capped at 50% for non-PI/non-employment cases |
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| Structured alternative available? | Yes — Conditional Fee Agreement (fee-plus-uplift), similar in shape to the German/French pattern |
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| Litigation funding regulatory status | Mature, self-regulated market (ALF Code of Conduct); champerty/maintenance largely set aside for commercial funding |
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| Recommended TREN structure | DBA at up to 50% — directly matches the Licensor's original proposal and concept doc terminology with no modification needed |
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## 5. Open items for T10 synthesis
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- Confirm current ALF membership figures and Code of Conduct terms before treating ALF membership as a registry admission criterion (concept §10) for UK Enforcement Partners/Funders.
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- Confirm the DBA Regulations 2013 have not been amended or superseded since this pass's data point before finalizing 50% as the UK figure.
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