The world's biggest litigation funder has set up shop in Australia to get a slice of the booming class-action business, including some high profile cases stemming from the banking royal commission.

Key points: Burford Capital is funding the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan class action against AMP

Burford Capital is funding the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan class action against AMP There are several competing legal class actions against AMP around "fees for no service" and the firm's share price collapse

There are several competing legal class actions against AMP around "fees for no service" and the firm's share price collapse Burford, the world's largest litigation funder, says some lawsuits arising from the financial crisis are still running, a decade on

US-based Burford Capital is already bankrolling one of the potential class actions against troubled wealth manager AMP, which has had its reputation and market value smashed by royal commission revelations, including the "fee for no service" scandal.

Burford chief executive Chris Bogart said the decision to back the AMP class action being run by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan is "an important foot in the door" in entering Australia's lucrative litigation market.

"We're going to have to build that business from scratch and it's going to require an investment of money and resources," Mr Bogart told the ABC from Washington.

"So having a few funded cases in the works is a way of defraying some of those start-up expenses."

The former investment banker and Time Warner executive has closely watched the banking royal commission from afar and is waiting on the release of Kenneth Hayne's final report, which is scheduled to be delivered to Governor-General Sir Peter Cosgrove on Friday.

Mr Bogart said, like most industry observers, he was disturbed by the royal commission revelations, including "fees for no service" and the market-value destruction that is at the centre of the AMP class action.

"It is obviously very troubling conduct, which is why you've seen us go and back the Quinn Emanuel law firm, which is the world's largest litigation law firm. So that's quite a combination in that AMP case," he said.

"Both we and Quinn have long track records of securing very considerable results and I think the testimony you saw and heard at the royal commission suggests some of that will occur in Australia."

Doing 'an enormous public service'

Burford's backing of the AMP class action pits it against other household brands — including Slater & Gordon, Shine Lawyers and Maurice Blackburn — that are competing to profit from a slice of the royal commission's legal fallout.

However, Mr Bogart denied Burford was simply cashing in on Australia's prominent class-action environment, and argued it had boosted competition, which would help keep legal costs down.

"We've already done an enormous public service in Australia by significantly reducing the burden the injured shareholders have in paying for bringing their case in the first place," Mr Bogart said.

"It's not in our interest that cases keep running. It's actually in our interests to get to the most efficient resolution of disputes because lawyers billing by the hour do have the incentive to keep a matter going on."

Burford's recently released litigation-funding survey underscored the firm's decision to open in Australia, with 83 per cent of Australian respondents expecting litigation funding to be increasingly important compared to 73 per cent in the US and 78 per cent in Britain.

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Mr Bogart said lawyers were still being kept busy by unresolved cases from the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.

"I think often people don't realise how very long claimants have to begin litigation actions," Mr Bogart said.

"So while the GFC may be a distant memory, for some people it certainly lives on in the courts and will for some years to come."