Commercial Litigation Update

On February 27, 2025, by a vote of 52 to 0, the Georgia Senate passed Senate Bill 69, titled “Georgia Courts Access and Consumer Protection Act.” If signed into law, the bill would regulate third-party litigation financing (“TPLF”) practices in Georgia where an individual or entity provides financing to a party to a lawsuit in exchange for a right to receive payment contingent on the lawsuit’s outcome. This bill represents another effort by states to restrain the influence of third-party litigation financiers and increase transparency in litigations.

Senate Bill 69 sets forth several key requirements. First, a person or entity engaging in litigation funding in Georgia must register as a litigation financier with the Department of Banking and Finance and provide specified information, including any affiliation with foreign persons or principals. Such filings are public records subject to disclosure.

On October 30, 2024, in Alternative Global One, LLC v. Feingold, the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed a trial court’s orders denying a New Jersey litigant’s motion to quash a subpoena for his deposition in underlying Florida litigation to which he was not a party. This decision illustrates that a litigant, even a non-party, must do more than assert blanket, unsubstantiated objections to a subpoena ad testificandum.

The appeal arose from a Florida litigation. In Alternative Global One, LLC v. Feingold, No. 2023-000688-CA-01 (Fla. Cir. Ct. filed Jan. 17, 2023), plaintiffs Alternative Global Companies filed suit against defendants David Feingold and Michael Dazzo, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, civil theft, conversion, replevin, tortious interference, civil conspiracy, accounting, and unjust enrichment. Along with Richard Cardinale, defendants served as co-managing members of the Alternative Global Companies. But after their resignation, defendants allegedly “attempt[ed] to convert [certain investments] from the Alternative Global Companies to their own benefit” and refused to surrender corporate books and records that they maintained. Pursuant to Rule 4:11-4(b), plaintiffs served a subpoena ad testificandum on appellant Daniel W. Amaniera, who was not a party to the litigation, seeking only to depose him in New Jersey.