Upholding a trial judge, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that a litigation funding company’s contract provisions barring class actions and mandating that legal actions be filed in Illinois are void and unenforceable because they violate Georgia public policy. 

The plaintiffs are a group of borrowers who had each borrowed a few thousand dollars or less by Oasis Legal Finance against pending legal claims. They sued the lender in Laurens County Superior Court arguing that their loans’ terms required interest payments of more than 100%, in violation of the state’s usury law, the Payday Lending Act [PLA] and the Georgia Industrial Loan Act [GILA], which limit the amount of interest on loans less than $3,000 to 10%.