We received another response to the item on 409A valuations in BVWire™ piece two weeks ago (“CFOs don’t value appraisals done for 409A compliance”):

• “There are those private company CFO’s who see ‘value’ in a properly completed – and priced – 409A engagement,” reports Mark Krikovich (MK Appraisal Group). “We are hearing from a number of our 409A clients that they are being heavily pitched by their onshore West-Coast banking partners for 409A work: as you can guess, it is on the cheap.  However, many of these CFO’s have informed us that they would rather pay a higher fee to avoid the conflicts posed by the banks’ investment in the company.   For us, the time to find substantial new AND properly-priced 409A work is long-gone.”
  

Even poor LeBron James is affected, reports Richard Meisner (Berman, Sauter, Record & Jardim, P.C.) in the blog 409A Dismay:

"As the ink dries on James’ new employment agreement, as well as those of Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, the Miami Heat and James’ attorneys will have inevitably contemplated and believed, in good faith, to have satisfied the requirements contained in the statute and in the accompanying regulations.”

Meisner pulled the quote from Jerald David August’s (Fox Rothschild) blog post “LeBron James, the Miami Heat and Section 409A of the Internal Revenue Code”.