target-revenue/workplans/TREV-WP-0005-enforcement-network-research.md

id	type	title	domain	repo	status	owner	topic_slug	created	updated	state_hub_workstream_id
TREV-WP-0005	workplan	Enforcement Network — legal feasibility and design research	infotech	target-revenue	active	claude	infotech	2026-07-29	2026-07-29	456470f5-85ef-490d-ab38-06116e6bb3a8

Enforcement Network — legal feasibility and design research

Researches the legal feasibility of specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md's core mechanism: independent Enforcement Partners pursuing unauthorized Commercial Use in their home jurisdiction for a Contingency Share of Recovery. This is a distinct research axis from workplans/TREV-WP-0004-global-jurisdiction-research.md: WP-0004 asks whether the License/Commercial Use Agreement's own terms (liability caps, data protection, choice of law) hold up per jurisdiction; this workplan asks whether the enforcement mechanism itself — lawyers or funders being paid a percentage of what they recover — is even legal in each jurisdiction, which is a legal-services/professional-ethics question, not a contract-enforceability question.

This workplan produces research artifacts, not final legal text or a final Contingency Share percentage. Per SCOPE.md and CONTRIBUTING.md, no output may be treated as legal advice or as resolving an open question in specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md without specialist counsel review and the same human-accept gate already applied elsewhere in this repository.

Known central risk (already flagged in the concept doc, §8): contingency fees for lawyers are banned or tightly restricted in several major jurisdictions (Germany foremost). Every jurisdiction task below must explicitly answer: (a) can a lawyer in this jurisdiction be paid a percentage of recovery directly; (b) if not, is a Litigation Funder / Local Counsel split (concept §8) a viable workaround under this jurisdiction's law; (c) what percentage or fee-structure limits apply either way.

Deliverable convention: same as WP-0004 — dated artifacts under history/, only the synthesis task (T10) proposes edits to specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md directly, gated behind human accept.

Germany and EU-wide

id: TREV-WP-0005-T01
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "67f0be48-2e3f-464f-bb61-954e5b5b343f"

Result 2026-07-29: history/260729-TREN-Jurisdiction-Germany-EU.md produced. Confirmed via search: RVG §4a permits contingency fees only in three narrow gates (≤€2,000 claims, debt collection, or client-would-be-deterred), none fitting TREN's likely fact pattern well — single-role Enforcement Partner is very likely not viable in Germany, confirming concept §8's hypothesis. France (second data point) permits a fixed-fee-plus-uncapped-result-fee structure instead. EU-level litigation funding regulation is proposed (2022 EP resolution) but not yet adopted; March 2025 Commission mapping study found funding remains largely unregulated at EU level.

Research German RVG §4a's narrow conditional-fee exception in detail (exact conditions under which Erfolgshonorar is permitted); the pactum de quota litis restriction's status and any liberalization trend across major EU civil-law jurisdictions (at least France as a second data point); EU-level third-party litigation funding regulation (the 2022 European Parliament resolution/proposed directive on responsible private funding of litigation, if adopted or advanced); and practical procedural routes for pursuing unauthorized Commercial Use as copyright/ contract infringement in Germany (injunctive relief availability, typical timeline, cost-shifting "loser pays" exposure).

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-Germany-EU.md.

United States

id: TREV-WP-0005-T02
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "def4ab73-bd64-4742-ac2a-d8f055ccec13"

Result 2026-07-29: history/260729-TREN-Jurisdiction-US.md produced. Confirmed contingency fees are broadly permitted (single-role Enforcement Partner viable), subject to state-bar reasonableness rules. Surfaced a practical (not legal) precondition: contingent-fee copyright counsel generally need timely copyright registration of the Milestone Release to unlock statutory damages ($750-$30,000/work, up to $150,000 for willful infringement) and fee-shifting — otherwise cases are hard to value. Identified the Copyright Claims Board as a lower-cost venue option for smaller Enforcement Actions. Litigation funding is permitted; the live regulatory topic is disclosure, not prohibition.

Research US contingency-fee availability (broadly permitted, subject to state-bar reasonableness rules and some matter-type restrictions e.g. family law/criminal defense); state-level litigation funding disclosure and regulation trends; the historical champerty/maintenance doctrine's much-reduced modern relevance; and typical US copyright/software-license infringement procedure (statutory damages availability under the Copyright Act where registration applies, injunctive relief, small-claims-adjacent options such as the Copyright Claims Board for lower-value disputes).

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-US.md.

United Kingdom

id: TREV-WP-0005-T03
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "6bee5575-11c8-4540-9abc-2c7412bf474b"

Result 2026-07-29: history/260729-TREN-Jurisdiction-UK.md produced. Confirmed the Damages-Based Agreement Regulations 2013 cap fee percentages at 25% (personal injury), 35% (employment), and 50% for all other cases — the concept doc's proposed 50% Contingency Share lands exactly on this real statutory ceiling for the case category an unauthorized- Commercial-Use claim would fall into, the first jurisdiction where the original figure is precisely validated rather than arbitrary. Conditional Fee Agreements (fee-plus-uplift) are a second, more flexible option. Litigation funding is a mature, self-regulated market (ALF Code of Conduct); champerty/maintenance doctrines are largely set aside for commercial funding.

Research Conditional Fee Agreements (CFAs) and Damages-Based Agreements (DBAs) as the UK's structured alternative to a plain contingency fee, including their statutory caps; the UK's well-established, self-regulated third-party litigation funding market (Association of Litigation Funders Code of Conduct); the historical champerty/maintenance doctrine's current near-abolition for funded commercial litigation; and typical UK IP/breach enforcement procedure.

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-UK.md.

Latin America (Argentina anchor)

id: TREV-WP-0005-T04
status: todo
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "b40fef09-f2a4-4fb4-9743-57de96b9b30f"

Research pacto de cuota litis availability for Argentine abogados (generally more permissive than continental Europe, often with statutory caps) and the broader Latin American pattern this represents or diverges from; local litigation-funding market maturity; and enforcement procedure for unauthorized commercial software use.

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-Argentina.md.

India

id: TREV-WP-0005-T05
status: todo
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "cb8ec312-4afa-4812-b5fd-5193c6c57140"

Research the Bar Council of India Rules' prohibition on advocates charging contingency fees, whether a Litigation Funder/Local Counsel split (concept §8) is viable under Indian law and professional-conduct rules given that prohibition, third-party litigation funding's legal status in India (historically permitted for funders who are not the advocate themselves, subject to some uncertainty), and IP enforcement procedure.

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-India.md.

China

id: TREV-WP-0005-T06
status: todo
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "e83722de-de3e-4a2b-ba8f-7f5d16ac5dae"

Research Chinese lawyers' contingency-fee rules (permitted in specified case types, typically capped, under Ministry of Justice regulation), litigation funding's presence and regulatory treatment in China, and the practical constraints a foreign copyright holder faces retaining local counsel and pursuing enforcement in Chinese courts — building on workplans/TREV-WP-0004-global-jurisdiction-research.md T06's finding (if completed first) regarding foreign governing-law/venue enforceability.

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-China.md.

Africa (representative jurisdictions)

id: TREV-WP-0005-T07
status: todo
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "c84f991f-34cc-42e0-acfd-4a5822a35f56"

Research South Africa's Contingency Fees Act 1997 (a statutory framework explicitly permitting capped contingency fees for attorneys — likely the most permissive African anchor jurisdiction) and the OHADA zone's French-derived restriction on pacte de quota litis as the civil-law anchor, consistent with the representative-jurisdiction approach used in WP-0004 T07.

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-Africa.md.

Asia-Pacific (beyond India and China)

id: TREV-WP-0005-T08
status: todo
priority: medium
state_hub_task_id: "35c7f74e-f70b-4c4b-9445-03c8dde53bb7"

Research Singapore's recent liberalization permitting Conditional Fee Agreements for certain proceedings (a change from its historical prohibition), Japan's customary success-fee arrangements under bar- association guidelines, and Australia's mature, heavily-regulated litigation funding market (a global hub for funded litigation) alongside its state-variable rules on lawyer contingency/uplift fees.

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Jurisdiction-AsiaPacific.md.

Cross-cutting mechanism design

id: TREV-WP-0005-T09
status: done
priority: high
state_hub_task_id: "5ac16b53-3229-409b-8ddd-7ff9eed6c4db"

Result 2026-07-29: history/260729-TREN-MechanismDesign.md produced. Synthesizes T01-T03 into a single Enforcement Partner Agreement template with jurisdiction-conditional role structure: single-role (Local Counsel receives Contingency Share directly — US, likely UK/France) vs. split-role (Litigation Funder receives Contingency Share, pays Local Counsel under a locally-compliant fee — Germany, likely much of continental Europe). Platform Share and the Development Credit allocation rule (concept §6) are unaffected by which structure applies — only the Contingency Share's internal routing varies. Produced a payment-flow diagram and a six-clause EPA outline. Explicitly notes the feasibility matrix is incomplete pending T04-T08.

Independent of any single jurisdiction: design the Litigation Funder / Local Counsel split-role structure (concept §8) in enough concrete detail to serve as an Enforcement Partner Agreement outline — who contracts with whom, how the Contingency Share flows from Recovery to the Funder and from the Funder (or Licensor) to Local Counsel, how standing/power-of-attorney works for a foreign Licensor engaging local counsel, and what the Enforcement Registry (Trust Service component) needs to record to keep this auditable without the Trust Service making any of the underlying legal decisions (concept §3.2, §10).

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-MechanismDesign.md.

Synthesis: feasibility matrix and concept resolution

id: TREV-WP-0005-T10
status: todo
priority: high
human_accept_required: true
state_hub_task_id: "cdd3ca93-2ec0-4326-959b-2c88de11b41b"

Using T01–T09, produce a consolidated feasibility matrix (one row per jurisdiction/family: direct lawyer contingency permitted? statutory cap? litigation funding regulatory status? recommended structural variant) and propose (but do not unilaterally apply) resolutions to specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md §11's open questions, particularly question 2 (is 50% viable, and where) and question 5 (foreign-Licensor standing). Draft an Enforcement Partner Agreement outline (not full legal text) reflecting T09's mechanism design plus the per-jurisdiction variants this task identifies.

Human accept gate: per the policy already applied to every other candidate legal document in this repository. Agents may prepare the synthesis and proposed concept-doc edits and leave this task todo — "ready for review," not done.

Deliverable: history/<date>-TREN-Synthesis.md, plus proposed (not yet applied) edits to specs/EnforcementNetworkConcept.md.