Navigating the litigation landscape in 2025

With 2025 well and truly underway, and festive holidays already a distant memory, now is the time to look to the year ahead and consider what issues we anticipate will dominate the litigation landscape.  While technological advancements and related evolving client expectations will inevitably permeate throughout the legal sector, in many ways the litigation sphere has the advantage when it comes to identifying some of the wider trends that may lie around the corner. 

Litigation trends continue to be closely connected with some of the most significant global events. In 2024, the courts remained occupied with cases stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, highlighting the litigation sector’s important role in dealing with significant societal disruptions.  The lessons learned from such cases provide litigators with invaluable insight into the types of issues and disputes that are likely to dominate in the future.

Applying that broader lens, we’ve selected a few key areas poised for growth in 2025, the first of which being Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) related litigation.  You need only look at the news headlines which have dominated the start of this year for evidence of large-scale disruptive climate related events, including severe flooding and wildfires.   Wherever you sit in respect of the climate change agenda, there’s no escaping the increasing demands for action, whether through implementation and enforcement of laws and regulation or direct challenge of specific acts or omissions through the courts. 

2025 will see the International Court of Justice (ICJ), hand down a much-awaited advisory opinion on international law concerning climate change.  The proceedings began in March 2023 with the public hearings concluding in December 2024.  The ICJ’s opinion will address two questions with far reaching legal implications – (1) what are the obligations of States under international law to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases; and (2) what are the legal consequences under those obligations for States where they, by their acts and omissions, have caused significant harm to the climate system and other parts of the environment? 

As public awareness of the urgent need for action in respect of issues of climate change and social justice continues to rise, in the UK, as in other parts of the world, ESG compliance and reporting is increasingly shifting away from voluntary corporate accountability, and being replaced with more mandatory requirements – although the extent has varied across different sectors. In one example, from the UK financial sector, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has continued to develop formal sustainability reporting and disclosure requirements, designed to standardise how those operating within financial services and markets share information and thereby improve transparency on climate-related and wider sustainability matters.  A focus for the FCA in 2025, will be on improving trust and integrity in ESG-labelled investment instruments, through enforcement of its new regulatory requirements (which came into force in May 2024) designed to combat ‘greenwashing’.   This example reflects a broader trend facing companies, requiring that they carefully navigate their growing legal and moral obligations under increased public scrutiny from not only a regulatory point of view, but from investors and consumers. Failure to do so properly, raises significant financial and reputational risks.