Third-party funding: The effect of the growing third-party funding industry in international arbitration on New Zealand

The quickly rising trend of third-party funding in international arbitration is an extremely novel and complex challenge for the international arbitration community. Third-party funding has a long history in the law of litigation funding but this new trend will require the international arbitration community to grapple with this concept in a new setting. As domestic countries have taken hugely varying approaches to third-party funding in a litigation context, the international arbitration community has a wealth of choice available to it in deciding how to approach this trend. There are many outstanding issues in this area and there is much speculation as to how these issues will be resolved. New Zealand will be affected by the choices that the international arbitration community makes in this regard when New Zealand engages in international arbitration. The possibility of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) coming into force is also likely to exacerbate some of the effects of the choices made on the state of New Zealand in investor-state arbitration.