champertous

A conveyance of land held adversely to the grantor is champertous and void.

Champertous contracts can still, depending on jurisdiction, be void for public policy or attract liability for costs.

Possession by a cestui que trust is not adverse to his trustee, and such possession will not void the latter to be champertous.

It arises solely when a company goes into liquidation and it would be champertous and against public policy to assign the fruits of such an action.

It had been issued by a wholly champertous Southern law firm on behalf of the Memphis-based family of a retired fast-food franchise owner, now deceased.

Public policy demanded that it be regarded as champertous and Schedule 4 did not authorise the agreement as being necessary for the winding up of the company's affairs.

Robert Walker J allowed the agreement provisionally, but allowed an appeal to the Court of Appeal to answer whether the assignment was champertous or not.

When asked upon what grounds, Judge Taylor said, "Champertous connivance," and declared he hoped to God the litigants were satisfied by each having had their public say.

The directors being sued claimed that the assignment was unlawful, as it was champertous (i.e. the wrong of getting an uninterested party involved in a lawsuit for money).

In 1955, the case of Martell v Consett Iron Company held that a defendant shall not be entitled to stay proceedings even if a funding agreement is deemed champertous.

The Court of Appeal held that such an assignment contravened the old common law prohibition on champertous causes, or ones which involve a party in litigation for payment when they have no interest.

The judge rejected an argument that the agreement was champertous, saying it was necessary to consider the role played by the consultants to see whether the nature of their interest in the outcome carried with it any tendency to sully the purity of justice.

In 2002 the Court of Appeal considered a funding agreement in the case of R (on the application of Factortame) v Secretary of State for Transport, Environments and the Regions (No 2) and held that it was not champertous.

Litigation funding is generally unregulated in South Africa, but it appears that it has quietly become part of the South African legal landscape, getting little to no resistance in the face of what used to be portrayed as contra bonos mores champertous agreements, which are, by definition, illegal.

The pursuance of damages through car hire schemes was held not to be champertous by the House of Lords in Sanders v Templar (Times Law Reports, 13 January 1993) and an increasing percentage of personal injury claims relating to motor accidents will come through this source in the future.