During a congressional hearing last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signaled interest in examining third-party litigation financing — the practice of outside investors funding lawsuits in exchange for a share of the proceeds.

Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was pressed by Rep. Kevin Hern on the topic.

Hern's concern was straightforward: Are foreign investors, including sovereign wealth funds, using American courts as an investment vehicle?

That is why Hern introduced the Tackling Predatory Litigation Funding Act — to prevent this practice from continuing to occur on the taxpayers’ dime.

Bessent did not wave off the concern. He said he looked forward to working with Hern on the “international foreign money that is coming in and gumming up the works and sponsoring these lawsuits in our system.”

The exchange moved litigation finance beyond a narrow legal-policy debate and into the mainstream political arena.

This was long overdue. Third-party litigation financing, once a niche practice, has become a serious business. It is currently valued at $20.6 billion annually and is expected to explode to over $49 billion a year by 2035.

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