First, we inform our clients fully, transparently, and fairly about the opportunities and risks, as well as about the costs that are certain to be incurred, along with any additional cost-related risks.

Second, we offer a free initial assessment of virtually all individual cases. This allows you to obtain an expert, preliminary assessment of your case at no risk or cost to you. At this juncture, we will explain your chances of success to you openly and honestly.

It is not uncommon for us to advise a prospective client not to hire us. We are not in the business of conducting hopeless lawsuits. Our clients should not be “throwing good money after bad.” Far more important to us is that you remember WEISSWERT’s transparent approach to communication as a positive experience – and that you recommend our law firm to others or consider consulting us again should you have any future need of our expertise in banking and capital markets law.

A number of remuneration models are available to our clients. Which specific model we can offer will depend on the circumstances of your individual claim. In most cases, however, our clients will be able to choose from several of the options described below.

In appropriate (standard) cases, we offer our clients to bill them in accordance with the German Act on the Remuneration of Lawyers (Rechtsanwaltsvergütungsgesetz – RVG). In such cases the fees are generally based on the value of the matter at hand and are regulated by the RVG. As the fees tend to be rather low, they do not reflect the effort needed for complex cases, which is why we can only offer this billing option in standard cases.

We believe that contingency fees are a good idea in principle. Our thinking is that it is only fair for us, as your legal counsel, to share your risks and earn our fees only in the event you prevail. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done in practice: Although contingency fees are not prohibited in Germany, they are subject to strict practical limits. This means that in many cases, we cannot work on the basis of a contingency fee.

That said, there are various situations and cases in which this will be possible and where we can gladly offer to work for you on the basis of a small flat fee plus a contingency fee. We will be happy to provide you with further details.

In many cases, we will be able to calculate precisely, on the basis of past experience, the time and effort an engagement would entail for us. This planning reliability is something we are happy to pass on to you by offering fixed prices or a flat fee. The advantage to you: You will retain full control over your costs.

In certain cases – usually ones that involve highly complex and/or long-lasting engagements, such as cross-border disputes in many cases – we prefer to bill on the basis of time spent. In such scenarios, the sole benchmark for our fees will be the time we expend, not the nature of the service. Billing on this basis can be a very sensible option in complex cases. Here, too, we will ensure that costs are fully controlled by regularly discussing with our clients, both before and during our engagement, our projections of the man-hours and associated costs that they will entail. It goes without saying that we keep our clients regularly updated about the current status of costs expenditures.

Another available option is to bring providers of litigation funding on board who fully will cover our law firm’s costs as well as the associated cost-related risks. In return for bearing these costs, the litigation funders demand a cut of the proceeds earned in the event of a favorable outcome (percentage share). The amount of the share will be based on the degree of risk assumed.

The fact is that litigation funding has become an important factor in the legal landscape in Germany – as well as in other countries – over the last few years, so that the market for such funding by now is firmly established. We expressly support this development, since it offers our clients an additional financing option. Indeed, a number of cases of significant importance for aggrieved investors could not have been brought to court successfully had it not been for litigation funding.

We are proud to have at our disposal a tried and tested network of leading litigation funders, both in Germany and abroad. We are happy to tap these contacts on our clients’ behalf. Since we have extensive experience in this area, we generally will be able to tell our clients whether their case is suitable for litigation funding already before contacting our network of funders. This is because we already know how these providers will evaluate a case, including the calculation formulas they apply in the process.

If the case fundamentally is suitable for litigation funding and if our client requests it, we will proceed to contact our network of funders free of charge on their behalf. We will also help the client find the funder with the best offer.