Crowd Justice is a new platform that aims to make the cost of going to court accessible for everyone.
The crowdfunding platform will take on cases that affect communities and will raise money to tackle the cases on their behalf.
Each case has a Crowd Justice ‘owner’ who triggers the crowd funding application.
The platform is only taking cases by invitation – and points out that accounting for any money raised is the responsibility of the case owner and not the platform.
No refunds are paid, but sometimes a case owner may have surplus funds. If the case owner has more money than needed to fight the case, any donor offering more than £1,000 can ask for part of their money back.
Crowd Justice says some cases are too important to leave to individuals to fight who may not have the means to fund their legal challenge.
“Everyone should have access to the law and just because someone has limited or little money should not mean that they cannot go to court,” said a spokesman for the platform.
The current cases seeking funding is that of oil worker and trade unionist Gilberto Torres who claims oil company BP was involved in financing the training of paramilitary soldiers in Colombia who kidnapped and tortured him and many others.
He has raised £3,450 of 35,000 needed to progress his case in the UK High Court.
Tax experts slam SEIS rules
Tax experts are warning that reforms to the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) , Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCT) could put investors off backing businesses in the scheme.
The Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) argues that qualifying conditions for investors are too complicated and may dissuade them from putting cash into businesses desperate for funding.
CIOT also explained that carrying out due diligence to ensure a company met the qualifying conditions takes too long and is too expensive, which is also something that makes potential investors look for easier way to earn a return on their money.
“We do not understand why some of the checks and balances are there as they do not appear to make sense,” said Andrew Gotch, chairman of the institute’s owner managed business sub-committee.
“We also think the rule that all SEIS and EIS investments are made for promoting business growth and development is not clearly defined and what the government takes the term to mean.”
