When Capital tries to scale the tip toward profit instead of justice. Image Source: Self designed

The Fall of a Funder

Therium Capital Management, once a leading force in global litigation funding, has stopped using its own capital to back new disputes. Instead, it has created Therium Capital Advisors (TCA), an intermediary that connects investors, corporates, and law firms without taking direct financial risk. To critics, it looks like a strategic retreat disguised as innovation

Founder Neil Purslow calls it “a new direction.” To others, it looks like a retreat disguised as reinvention. The company’s remaining litigation portfolio, including its most controversial investments, is now under the operational control of Fortress Investment Group, an asset manager known for its risk discipline and caution.

“To critics, it looks like a strategic retreat disguised as innovation.”

Cracks Beneath the Surface

The litigation funding boom that once lifted Therium has cooled sharply. Rising interest rates, delayed court outcomes, and inconsistent enforcement have made it harder to deliver steady returns. Investors now want transparency and speed, not twelve-year bets on uncertain outcomes.

Internally, Therium’s “big bet” model proved brittle. When a few marquee cases underperformed, the entire structure shook. The illusion of endless upside gave way to liquidity strain, layoffs, and a slow unwinding of what was once one of the industry’s most ambitious portfolios.

And in the courtroom, even the credibility of its leadership has taken hits. In Centenary 6 Limited v TLT LLP (Court of Session, Edinburgh, 2023), Purslow appeared as an expert witness to explain litigation funding mechanics. The judge, Lord Ericht, found his testimony “of little assistance”, a withering line that has since echoed across legal circles. It was a moment that captured the growing skepticism toward funders who claim to democratize justice but struggle to justify their own economics under scrutiny.

The Sulu Arbitration: A Symptom, Not an Exception

Therium’s funding of the Sulu heirs’ arbitration, once hailed as a bold assertion of postcolonial justice, now stands as the cautionary tale of the industry. The case drained resources, drew political fire, and exposed how speculative arbitration can outgrow both control and credibility.

As the claim collapsed across multiple jurisdictions, it also punctured the myth that Therium’s high-risk strategy was visionary. It was, instead, reckless, showing how unchecked risk-taking and lax oversight can quickly turn promise into liability. The firm’s inability to distinguish between viable legal innovation and legal opportunism eroded trust among investors and peers alike.

With Fortress now in charge, the goal is containment, not conquest. Speculative or weakly grounded cases are being wounded down. The Sulu arbitration, once the centerpiece of Therium’s aggressive funding narrative, has been quietly downgraded to a distressed asset, a symbol of ambition untethered from discipline.

“Unchecked risk-taking and lax oversight can quickly turn promise into liability.”

Old Habits, New Branding

Therium’s pivot to advisory work marks the end of an era, not just for the company, but for litigation funding itself. The swashbuckling funders who once saw themselves as disruptors are being replaced by cautious intermediaries. “Innovation” now means survival. The rhetoric of strategy and sophistication cannot hide the core reality: Therium no longer wants to risk its own capital.

Yet, behind the new logos and LinkedIn narrative, the old reflexes remain. Purslow’s new role as “connector” between capital and counsel mirrors the same financial engineering that once destabilized his own firm. The pivot from funder to middleman does not erase the core problem: a business model built on financializing justice.

“The rhetoric of strategy and sophistication cannot hide the core reality: Therium no longer wants to risk its own capital.”

Therium’s new life as an advisory bridge between money and law may delay its reckoning, but it doesn’t reverse it. In the end, the same logic that doomed its old model still governs its new one, a belief that justice can be priced, packaged, and sold, as long as someone else holds the risk.

For Therium, the Verdict Is Already In

Therium’s downfall is not just about financial missteps; it’s about credibility. When a judge can dismiss your expert testimony as unhelpful, when your flagship case becomes a cautionary tale, and when your investors hand your books to Fortress, the story writes itself.

The industry is moving on. But the imprint of Therium’s failures, and the uneasy lesson from its courtroom appearances, will linger. The future of litigation funding now lies with those who can balance profit with principle. Therium, for all its ambition, proved incapable of either.

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