Why did Burford Capital have a change of heart about funding the Ecuadorian plaintiffs seeking to enforce a multibillion-dollar judgment against Chevron? According to a motion filed on Thursday by Patton Boggs, one of the plaintiffs' counsel, Burford dumped the plaintiffs because it decided that backing them would threaten its litigation financing business.

Describing the third-party litigation financing business as "lumpy, unpredictable and high-risk," Burford Capital nonetheless announced significant increases in its financial results on Thursday.

In its effort to discredit lawyers holding an allegedly fraudulent $19 billion environmental judgment against it, Chevron Corporation has found an unlikely ally: Burford Capital, the world's largest litigation financing company, which in 2010 agreed to invest up to $15 million in the worldwide effort to enforce the mega-judgment.

It's time to declare third-party litigation financing a bona fide investment class: Invesco and Fidelity snapped up shares in Burford Capital, a fund whose personnel includes two former Time Warner GCs and three retired Latham litigation partners. Burford plans to invest in U.S. commercial litigation and international arbitration.

Burford Capital, the world's biggest litigation financing company, is getting bigger.

According to an internal Burford document--which outlined proposed economic terms for funding the plaintiffs in the Lago Agrio litigation--Burford was concerned about an "unnaturally low" settlement. To prevent that, it didn't want the plaintiffs to settle for less than $900 million without Burford's consent.