Australian litigation funder Omni Bridgeway has hired a partner from Alston & Bird to spearhead an office launch in Washington DC as it looks to bulk up its US antitrust practice. 

Jason Levine joins the funder as an investment manager and legal counsel after two years at Alston & Bird, where he was a business litigation and trials partner. He will be joined in the new office by newly minted associate investment manager and legal counsel Priyanka Timblo, who moved over to Omni’s New York office in October from Holwell Shuster & Goldberg. 

Omni said the move was part of the company’s ‘ongoing rapid expansion’ of its US investment team, as well as an important step towards building out its antitrust bench strength stateside. 

Levine has spent more than 25 years as a trial lawyer in DC covering a range of commercial, regulatory, class action and antitrust matters. The funder said Levine’s collective track record has seen him win more than $3bn for corporate plaintiff clients, while avoiding more than $17bn in potential liability for defendant clients. 

Levine began his career as a litigation associate at Covington & Burling in the mid-nineties before jumping to McDermott Will & Emery in 2004, where he served as a partner and head of the firm’s DC trial practice group. He joined Vinson & Elkins in 2011 before landing at Alston & Bird two years ago.  

Timblo also has Big Law experience, having spent just over three years as an associate at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison in New York between 2014 and 2017 before joining Holwell Shuster. 

Andrew Saker, Omni managing director, chief executive and chief strategy officer, said the funder's growth in the US "continues as we establish our footprint in Washington DC starting with Jason's arrival. Combined with Priyanka's experience, we are clearly adding to our antitrust and broader complex litigation expertise as part of our full-service litigation finance offering.”

The funder first touched down in the US in 2011 when it opened its New York base, which has since grown to become a team of 27 professionals, including 18 investment managers and legal counsel. 

Omni’s New York team includes Megan Easley and Austin Ginnings, who joined the funder in September 2020 from boutique firm Susman Godfrey and patent finance specialist Soryn IP Group respectively. 

In the same month, it also secured the services of experienced former general counsel Martha Solinger as a member of its US investment committee, with Solinger becoming the first women to join the body. She previously served as co-general counsel of Lehman Brothers’ Holdings after its insolvency, having spent more than twenty years at the investment bank. 

Omni currently has 18 locations across Australia, Asia, Europe and the US, as well as a remote Latin America desk. 

In other litigation funder news, London and New York-listed funder Burford Capital hired Calunius Capital co-founder Mick Smith last month in a bid to grow its European offering. 

And last September, leading UK disputes firm Mishcon de Reya announced it had partnered with Harbour Litigation Funding to launch MDR Solutions I, a litigation fund that will see the parties allocate £150m to finance potential claims.