With investors and analysts focused on the spread of coronavirus and its impact on global economic growth, expect the chatter around litigation finance as a “recession-proof asset class” to grow louder, and interest in the industry—which is reportedly already awash with capital—to mount. Meanwhile, early 2020 has seen a number of decisions notable in the ongoing debate over the disclosure of commercial litigation funding, as well as the emergence of yet more NPEs backed by private equity.

Kewazinga Corp. has resumed litigation against Alphabet (Google) (1:20-cv-01106), asserting in a new complaint three patents generally related to a camera array that captures adjacent fields of view and “stitches” them together in a mosaic-like image so that the entire environment can be viewed in a seamless, panoramic view. The plaintiff targets the provision of Google Maps, the Google Street View feature of which allows users to simulate “movement along a path”. Kewazinga’s suit against Google joins a May 2018 case against Microsoft in the Southern District of New York, filed four months after a security interest in the asserted patents was granted to a “leading global alternative asset management firm”.