Class actions have their own rules, including when it comes to expert testimony. An unresolved issue is whether damages expert testimony is subject to a Daubert inquiry at the class certification stage, before the court has approved the request to proceed as a class action. The U.S. Supreme Court has yet to give clear guidance, but defendants are increasingly proactive and move to exclude the testimony at the beginning of the litigation in an attempt to thwart class certification and knock the case out early. Read more >>

The use of the Delaware block method in Tennessee recently came under attack in a case involving a closely held Nashville, Tenn.-based media company whose controlling shareholders had pursued a squeeze-out merger and later asked the trial court for a judicial appraisal of the dissenting shareholders' interest. Read more >>

A recent bankruptcy-related case in front of the California Court of Appeal raises important questions about how one quantifies the value of a dated piece of art, a film, for which there never was a market in the first place. Read more >>

Double dipping is a tricky issue because different states have developed different approaches to it. Valuators specializing in divorce issues must know the controlling case law in the state in which they practice. A recent decision by the Washington state Court of Appeals clarifies its state's analytical framework in a case featuring a successful management consulting business the husband had set up and grown during the marriage. Read more >>

In a statutory appraisal action, the Delaware Court of Chancery recently found the deal price did not reflect fair value because the sales process was suboptimal. Certain other methods the parties' experts used also were inadequate to the task, the court said. Read more >>

Over half of the $4.7 billion in settlements and judgments the government recovered in 2016 under the False Claims Act (FCA) were from the healthcare industry. Allegations often revolve around the measurement of the fair market value of physician compensation. Read more >>

U.S. Tax Court Judge David Laro frequently has cautioned experts not to give in to hiring attorneys who want to shape the appraisal. Although federal and state discovery rules offer some protection for attorney-expert communication, there is a risk of exposure and with it a risk of damage to the expert’s work product and reputation. A recent Section 1031 case, which Judge Laro handled, illustrates what happens when the communication is discovered. Read more >>

The Delaware Court of Chancery recently cut short a challenge to a going-private merger when it dismissed the plaintiffs' complaint. The plaintiffs unsuccessfully argued the defendants breached their fiduciary duties when they favored the controller's lower bid over a third-party bidder's higher offer. Read more >>

A drawn-out damages case in which a startup compression sportswear company sued the defendant "private label" manufacturer over an abandoned licensing deal promised to make the plaintiff rich but ultimately ended with nominal damages. Read more >>

A recent ESOP decision involving allegations of breach of fiduciary duty and engaging in a prohibited transaction turned on whether the ESOP trustee’s financial advisor had performed proper due diligence and issued defensible fairness and valuation analyses. Read more >>

All six valuation disciplines were put on the "stand" and cross-examined by an attorney. It demonstrated that even the best valuation report can get skewered in court. Read more >>

In a Mississippi divorce, the husband's sole-owned fitness training company was the key asset. An accurate valuation was central to achieving an equitable distribution of property, but the parties did not hire experts or even submit much financial information to the trial court. Read more >>

The plaintiff, representing the debtor enterprises, sued executives of related family-run consumer lending and retail businesses that had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy over allegedly fraudulent transfers. Read more >>

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps Chancellor Bouchard thought of Aristotle when he recently ruled in a statutory appraisal action that, even though the results of three common valuation techniques were unreliable indicators of value, in combination they established fair value. Read more >>

In an estate tax dispute that has lasted for over five years, the Tax Court recently revalued the decedent’s minority interest in an Oregon family business by order of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The recalculation proved a boon to the taxpayer. Read more >>

In litigation, attacks on expert opinions are par for the course, but a sound expert report can ward off a Daubert challenge and clear the way to admission at trial, as a recent fraud case illustrates. Read more >>

It's not your average lost profits or lost business opportunity case. Rather, Hogan's damages experts were successful in quantifying damages under the less-common unjust enrichment theory. Rather than focusing on the damages to Hogan, the plaintiff, stemming from Gawker's misconduct, the experts calculated the gain to Gawker, the defendant, from the misuse of Hogan's assets, that is, his brand and other intellectual property. Read more >>

So much for clarity. A recent Tennessee appeals court decision hinged on the issue of whether a marketability discount was appropriate in the valuation of the husband’s interests in three real estate development partnerships. In reviewing the trial court’s analysis, the appeals court suggested that the lower court misunderstood the principle behind DLOM but ultimately upheld the lower court’s findings. The resulting decision leaves valuators in a pickle as to when to apply the discount and at what rate. Read more >>

It decided to give no weight to the final merger price—$13.75 per share, and a special $0.13 dividend issued to all shareholders—but rely exclusively on its own post-transaction DCF analysis to determine the fair value of the company. In so doing, the court deviated from a number of Chancery decisions—several issued in 2015—that found the deal price was the most reliable indicator of the company’s fair value. Read more >>

The district court's determination of overpayment was a function of the contract price and the stock’s fair market value on each of three transaction dates. For its FMV determination, the court considered the testimony of three noted valuation experts retained by the plaintiffs, the DOL, and the defendants respectively. Different experts used different methods, different assumptions, different estimates, and they reached different conclusions. But they all used multiple approaches to produce several FMV estimates on the transaction dates. To arrive at a final value determination, or range of values, they all averaged or weighted the results. Read more >>