Effective claims and dispute management as a strategic demarcator: from early prevention and assessment to value-based representation, funding, enforcement, and monetisation

Dr Ziad A. Mouallem, Head of Legal Operations at Practiclaim™ in Dubai – a next-generation legal claim concierge and facilitator (ALSP) – offers a pragmatic perspective on turning complex claims into practical outcomes, helping businesses and counsel align legal risk with operational reality through modern procurement design.

Claims and dispute management has undergone a fundamental transformation. Once largely confined to insurance handling and low-value debt recovery, it is now widely understood as a strategic, value-generating business function. Across sectors, disputes are no longer viewed merely as legal problems to endure, but as commercial assets requiring structured management, economic discipline, and foresight.

This shift reflects a broader reassessment of how legal risk intersects with operational reality. As disputes become larger, more technical, and more cross-border, businesses are re-examining how claims are identified, assessed, funded, prosecuted, resolved, and ultimately enforced.

Internal Handling Versus External Management

Routine or recurring matters continue to be handled internally across many industries. In construction, logistics, freight forwarding, shipping, banking, and trade finance, standardised claims are typically managed by contract administrators, claims analysts, credit controllers, or recovery officers – sometimes supported by collection agencies, receivables finance, or credit insurance structures. In energy and oil & gas, particularly where sovereign or government-backed contracts are involved, claim resolution is treated as a core strategic function, with emphasis on set-offs, in-kind adjustments, or cross-asset offsets before escalation.

At the same time, the market is steadily moving toward the externalisation of resource-intensive and high-stakes disputes. Simple claims are often handled internally or dropped when they fall below a cost-benefit threshold, including those unsuitable for litigation funding or contingency-based models. Many such matters are better served through smart outsourcing beyond traditional claim-servicing frameworks, where structured external management can preserve value that would otherwise be lost.

External management becomes particularly compelling where disputes are high-value, technically complex, multi-jurisdictional, or arbitration-heavy, and where in-house bandwidth or specialist expertise is limited.

Specialisation Gaps and the Need for Coordination

Legal services markets offer an abundance of point solutions: international law firms, boutiques, litigation funders, recovery agents, investigators, brokers, and consultants. Yet very few actors manage the full end-to-end claim lifecycle across legal, financial, and operational dimensions. In complex commercial and cross-border disputes, coordination gaps remain pronounced.

Where disputes span jurisdictions, involve layered servicing, sovereign counterparties, or complex funding dynamics, fragmentation becomes a material risk. The absence of a coordinating operator capable of sequencing assessment, budgeting, forum selection, funding strategy, and enforcement planning often results in delay, inefficiency, and value erosion. When that coordinating layer is present, outsourcing delivers measurable value; when it is not, even strong claims can stall.

Structured external management models are emerging to bridge the gap between internal handling and full legal escalation.

Claims as a Commercial Exercise

Managing a claim is fundamentally a commercial exercise. The objective is not legal victory alone, but net recovery and return on investment under real-world constraints.

Effective claim leadership requires running disputes as projects: aligning experts, timelines, budgets, communications, and stakeholders, while continuously evaluating settlement options, representation strategy, funding structures, monetisation pathways, and enforcement prospects.

This approach is particularly relevant where in-house legal teams are lean and focused on compliance rather than multi-year dispute operations. Many of the most consequential decisions are commercial rather than legal: whether to settle or finance, which forum offers realistic enforcement, how to manage collateral and exposure, and when to exit. Getting these decisions wrong drains capital; getting them right converts disputes into assets.

Cost, Risk, and Persistent Disincentives

Despite these developments, material deterrents remain. Cost, time, enforcement risk, and relationship sensitivity continue to weigh on decision-making. Legal, expert, and institutional fees are substantial; proceedings are lengthy; outcome-based pricing remains limited; and collection is never guaranteed – particularly where counterparties are offshore, undercapitalised, or government-linked.

Smaller businesses are disproportionately affected by up-front costs and management distraction. Procedural fatigue often leads to premature settlements or write-offs, even where claims have merit. Hesitation to engage specialised management also stems from ROI uncertainty, confidentiality and control concerns, and internal resistance to new operating models. These barriers typically fall away once disputes become prolonged, multi-party, or operationally demanding.

Claims Assignability and Monetisation

While the market remains restrictive on trading bare litigation rights or mass actions, the foundation is stronger than before. Receivables and payment rights are generally assignable across many jurisdictions, while broader class-action regimes remain limited outside specific consumer-protection frameworks.

For cross-border and high-value disputes, aligning applicable law, arbitral seat, and enforcement pathways is decisive. As regional laws evolve and courts increasingly emphasise efficiency, claims are viewed less as static legal entitlements and more as transferable, fundable, and monetisable assets.

Funded parties increasingly seek not only cost coverage, but monetisation and off-balance-sheet treatment of claims. This is most visible in construction, banking, joint-venture, and sovereign-commercial disputes, where arbitration delivers enforceable outcomes that attract capital.

Outlook

The direction of travel is clear. The market is shifting from reactive lawyering toward proactive, project-style claim management, particularly for complex and cross-border disputes.

Technology is reshaping dispute delivery. AI-assisted assessment, claim mobility, and data-driven evaluation enable businesses to manage disputes as coordinated commercial projects. Service delivery is moving from siloed offerings toward integrated solutions, creating space for professionalised claim-management models that extend beyond traditional legal frameworks.

Related Publications