Recently, a district court in Hawaii has ruled in favor of the trustees and sponsors in a case that is getting a lot of attention, Walsh v. Bowers, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 177184. The Department of Labor sued the defendants, which included two individual owners. read on to dive a little deeper into the details of this fascinating case! Read more >>

Recently a court in Arizona rejected the use of a calculation report, but an appellate court ruled it was wrong to do so and sent the case back to the lower court. The reasoning for this decision strikes at a broader question: is calculated value admissible in court? Read more >>

The courts in the past few years have been sprinkled with cases dealing with whether a discount for lack of control (DLOC) or marketability (DLOM) should be applied in the case of a shareholder buyout. Read more >>

The Department of Labor (DOL) has a long history of challenging transactions involving company owners selling some or all of their interests to an ESOP. The most common challenge is to the value the trustees approved for executing the sale of company stock held by owners to the ESOP. Read more >>

Hi, I am Jim Alerding, CPA/ABV. Many of you know me from my presentations and articles over the years. I have over 40 years of experience in business valuation and litigation services. I started in 1980 in the BV and testimony arenas. Since my first case was a valuation for a divorce case in which I then testified, I started in BV and Litigation Support at the same time. Read more >>

When Michael Jackson died, his image and likeness was besmirched and yet, once competent executors took charge, they were able to make a lot of money for the estate in the immediate post-death years. The issue was to what extent this subsequent development could factor into the image-and-likeness valuation. In explaining his high valuation, the IRS’ expert offered a theory of “foreseeable opportunities” that the U.S. Tax Court found unpersuasive. Read more >>

On March 19, Caesars Entertainment joined the long list of businesses that have filed lawsuits against their insurance companies for refusing to pay business interruption losses stemming from COVID-19-related government shutdowns of economies across the nation and world. Whether Caesars, which asserts that losses its various business entities incurred may exceed $2 billion, succeeds where a lot of other plaintiffs have failed will be worth monitoring. Read more >>

Although the U.S. Tax Court recently handed the Michael Jackson estate a decisive victory regarding the estate’s tax liability, the court did not side with the estate on tax affecting, an issue that has preoccupied valuators, many of whom are proponents of the practice, for a long time. Read more >>

In the long-running litigation between the estate of the late megastar Michael Jackson and the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Tax Court recently issued its opinion on the value of Jackson’s image and likeness, as well as the value of his interest in two music publishing assets. Overall, this much-anticipated decision is a major win for the Jackson estate. The court’s momentous decision includes an expansive analysis of the rivaling valuation testimony. Read more >>

Last year, in a compelled buyout, the Court of Appeals sided with the departing minority shareholder when it found discounts did not apply in a closed-market sale. In a freshly minted decision, the Indiana Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals, finding there was no blanket rule disallowing discounts in a compelled buyback. This is especially true where the parties exercised a shareholder agreement whose terms suggested the use of fair market value. Read more >>

Complicated as the year 2020 was, it was not boring. The past year offered a wealth of lawsuits dealing with business valuation and economic damages issues. The list below shows our Top 10. Read more >>

A recent article in the New York Times extols the virtues of employee ownership through employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). And trade groups for employee-owned businesses have noted bipartisan Congressional support for ESOPs. But ESOP experts (trustees and appraisers) worry that the Department of Labor’s antagonistic attitude toward ESOP transactions, validated by key victories in court, has stymied ESOP formation. Read more >>

How do you resolve a divorce case during COVID-19, when many businesses in all kinds of industries are coping with significant losses and continuing uncertainty over future performance? This was the topic of an excellent panel discussion that was part of the recent virtual AAML/BVR divorce conference. Read more >>

COVID-19-related business interruption cases are winding their way through the court system, and one state court, in a matter of first impression, recently issued a decision against the business owner. Read more >>

The Indiana Court of Appeals and the South Carolina Supreme Court recently issued noteworthy rulings on the appropriateness of discounts in valuing minority interests. The contexts in which the issue arose were different, but both situations amounted to a compelled buyback of shares. Read more >>

Filing a business interruption claim has become one of the go-to moves for businesses as they try to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. A discussion of two cases that were adjudicated just before the COVID-19 crisis came into relief explains the trajectory many claims, including claims arising out of the COVID-19 crisis, may take and points to opportunities for damages experts. Read more >>

Just as the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 brought businesses and economic activity to a sudden halt, an ABA panel discussed the grave effects on businesses and the legal doctrines available to business owners to mitigate the economic injury stemming from business interruption and unforeseeable circumstances. Read more >>

In an appraisal proceeding in which the Delaware Court of Chancery favored the discounted cash flow analysis as the means with which to determine fair value, the court had sharp words for the company expert’s decision to introduce a new way for calculating equity beta. Read more >>

In a buyout dispute involving a Connecticut family business, an appellate court recently upheld the trial court’s earlier decision not to tax affect the earnings of the company in valuing the departing shareholder’s interest, even though experts for both sides tax affected. Read more >>

At the end of every year, BVLaw takes stock of valuation and damages cases that have dominated the conversation among financial experts by making law or influencing in some other way attitudes on key valuation issues. Here is our selection of 2019 cases by Sylvia Golden, Esq., BVR’s executive legal editor. Read more >>