Sentry Funding, the UK’s largest panel of litigation funders and ATE providers for solicitors, announced a partnership with Verify 365, the Warwickshire-based provider of automated AML identity checks and source of funds verifications for law firms, to streamline the onboarding process for new clients.

Through the partnership, Sentry Funding will leverage Verify 365’s Digital Onboarding Platform to verify identity documents in real time, validate addresses and verify clients against global PEPs and sanction lists through a secure, fully digital AML workflow. This will eliminate the need for tedious physical document submission and handling, while also speeding up the AML checks onboarding process for new clients.

Staying compliant with anti-money laundering regulations

Verify 365’s AML verification solution will enable Sentry Funding to enhance its security, stay compliant with anti-money laundering regulations and provide a seamless client onboarding experience to its clients.

This is one of several initiatives at Sentry Funding to offer a simplified client onboarding process combined with a more client-friendly technology-driven KYC workflow, with the single aim to revolutionise the acquisition and administration of litigation funding and ATE Insurance.

Tom Webster, Commercial Director at Sentry Funding said: “We aim to achieve two things with Sentry, to provide solicitors and their clients with quicker and more relevant funding and ATE decisions, and to make this really complex process feel much more transparent to the parties involved. Our algorithms will review your clients case against funding and insurance criteria to provide you with the best matches and a decision in principle within 5 minutes, which means less time for you and your clients to worry about financing and insuring their claim. By providing straightforward, compliant processes to attain litigation funding and ATE insurance, along with collated case tracking, Sentry helps take the headaches out of the process.”

Using a SaaS portal that was developed in-house, Sentry can provide litigating solicitors access the largest panel of litigation funders and ATE providers, so giving litigators quick decisions and clients access to cost effective funding options.

We’ve been through it, and knew it could be better.

“The experience of our team lies in the intersection of finance and technology. So when we began to encounter the processes behind litigation funding we knew it could, and had to be better. So we brought together our financing expertise, technology proficiency, and the smartest minds across the legal sector to create Sentry Funding. Now, through our endorsements, we hope to give solicitors the confidence they need to seek out the best fit litigation funders and ATE insurance providers for their case, and to help more clients access justice,” added Tom.

Why did Sentry Funding select Verify 365 as the preferred AML solution provider?

“Verify 365 is a digital AML and identity verification platform, so a combination of technology and risk management, which will make it easier for us to complete AML checks and ID verifications quickly and securely. By leveraging the latest AI technology for automating AML checks, Verify 365 will help us increase the efficiency of verifying crucial AML documents at scale and enable a real-time risk-based response on the validity of these submissions,” added Tom.

Rudi Kesic, CEO at Verify 365, said: “Technology-driven AML checks and automated identity verifications can greatly help organisations such as Sentry Funding minimise the risk of fraud and money laundering, thus resolving a major source of friction. We’re proud to partner with an industry leader like Sentry Funding and to have an opportunity to provide them with the market-leading AML solution which will enable the company to continue to scale up, innovate, increase operational efficiency and manage risk more effectively.”

Verify 365 provides real-time AML verifications that no other AML checks provider can match

“Clients have become more cautious when sharing sensitive information. With Verify 365’s high level of security when handling AML checks and ID documents, and our ability to provide real-time AML checks, customers don’t have to worry about submitting confidential information or tedious requirements for notarised copies of identity documents. This will allow Sentry Funding to build trust with clients and make their journey more seamless,” said Mev Dzihic, CTO at Verify 365.

The History of Litigation Funding

Sentry Funding is helping everyday people and small businesses access funding through its revolutionary Fast Track technology, which is speeding up the funding process and saving claimants money. But how did it all start? What is the story behind now prominent third-party litigation funding?

Historically, third parties were prohibited from funding an unconnected party’s litigation under the doctrines of maintenance and champerty according to the English common law.

Maintenance is about people who are not party to a legal case providing funding for that case, and champerty is maintenance for a profit. Instances of both maintenance and champerty were largely illegal throughout the history of the United Kingdom in an effort to prevent outside interference in legal proceedings.

Litigation finance, in its modern form, originated in Australia in the mid-1990s following the enactment of insolvency legislation. It permitted insolvency practitioners to enter into contracts to finance litigation, which recognised legal claims as a corporate asset. In relation to this legislation, litigation funding companies began to emerge to service this new niche market.

The rise of litigation financing in the United Kingdom occurred around the same period as it did in Australia, but took a different path following the introduction of two significant pieces of legislation. First, the Criminal Law Act of 1967 decriminalised maintenance and champerty, and overturned the tort liability originating from those legal doctrines.

Second, in 1990, Parliament passed the Courts and Legal Services Act, which made it legal for clients and lawyers to enter into conditional fee agreements (CFAs). Such “no-win, no-fee” arrangements were not previously permitted in the U.K. The removal of the CFA ban implicitly introduced the concept of litigation financing, as lawyers could now technically fund litigations with their time and skill in exchange for a share of the recovery. CFAs allowed clients, previously too poor to sue, the ability to go forward because a third party was now paying the bill. Together with the abolition of champerty and maintenance, the 1990 act opened the door to what would become modern litigation financing in the U.K.

The widespread rise of litigation financing came after the passage of the Access to Justice Act 1999, which was intended to offer alternatives to the traditional means of litigation funding in the U.K., which at the time were CFAs. It did so in three important ways. First, it excluded personal injury cases from receiving civil legal aid, on the premise that CFAs were a means for these litigants to obtain the third-party funding necessary to bring suit. Second, it allowed successful litigants to pass the success fees and insurance premiums associated with CFAs on to their opponents under the U.K.’s “loser pays” rule, which provides that the losing party must pay the winning party’s attorney’s fees. Third, it introduced After the Event (ATE) insurance, which allowed litigants to insure against the possibility of having to pay their opponent’s legal fees under the “loser pays” rule in the event that a case was unsuccessful. The combination of widespread “no-win, no-fee” arrangements and the ability to pass off an opponent’s legal fees under ATEs meant that litigants could essentially have all aspects of their suits funded by third parties, regardless of whether they won or lost. With these developments, a specialised litigation finance industry began to emerge.

For more information about Sentry Funding, or to enquire about your litigation funding and ATE insurance requirements, please visit: https://sentryfunding.co.uk/contact/

“Verify 365 are innovating in the world of cross-border trade and automating client onboarding for the legal sector,” added Azeem Rashid, COO at Verify 365. “We’re excited to be partnering with such a forward-looking company and are pleased to be enabling Sentry Funding to verify new clients and undertake anti-money laundering checks faster and more securely than ever before.”

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BY VERIFY 365 NEWS

12 November 2022 | Stratford-upon-Avon