dwalker, the liability (being negligence) is covered by D&O insurance and I've checked the last Annual Report which confirms AVX has taken out this insurance - so no problems with recovering.
the only way to get a litigation funder on board is to generate a aggregate claim of at least $2m. I think this is a pretty good case, so the funder would take around 20-25% of whatever was recovered. Any ideas on how to get enough shareholders together ?