The hottest new trend in law and finance claimed its most high-profile victim yet earlier this month when a New York court ordered Argentina to pay a multibillion-dollar award. The twist: the winner won’t get a significant chunk of the money.

That portion will instead go to a giant investment firm called Burford Capital, a company that wasn’t a party to the case at all but nonetheless bet on the outcome.

The win is a major vindication for a strategy known as litigation finance, where experts scour the world for favorable cases, finance them, and take a massive payout if they win — often without ever having to disclose the fact that they were involved. It’s a strategy that has often targeted some of the world’s most vulnerable nations.