At the recent AAML/BVR divorce conference, held May 8-10 in Las Vegas, one of the sessions that best conveyed the advantages of an interdisciplinary discussion was on ethics. The topic was “Ethics Violations: How to Avoid the Letter No One Wants to Receive,” and the speakers were Marie Ebersbacher (CBIZ MHM LLC), an appraiser and financial forensics expert, and Lawrence Moskowitz (Perry, Johnson, Anderson, Miller & Moskowitz LLP), a family law attorney. Read more >>

At year-end, Sylvia Golden, BVR’s executive legal editor, provides a roundup of the key business valuation and damages cases. Here are her choices for 2018. Some of the courts’ decisions have changed the legal landscape and are must-know cases. Other rulings are confined to the specific case, but they contain important lessons for appraisers of how to, and, more often, how not to, perform as a financial expert. Read more >>

Case law matters. Every month, BVLaw analyzes the most noteworthy court decisions dealing with valuation and damages issues. Subscribers should check out digests of three recent divorce rulings different state courts issued. All the cases dealt with the issue of whether it was appropriate to discount the owner-spouse’s interest in a closely held business. Read more >>

As a busy business valuation professional, you may not always have the time to attend training events. We’ve compiled the top five tips from recent BVR webinars on the most timely and important topics in the profession. Read more >>

Every month, BVLaw analyzes and digests federal and state court decisions (including opinions from the United States Tax Court) that focus on valuation and damages issues and feature expert testimony. A BVLaw subscription is an efficient way for financial experts to keep up with developments in their areas of expertise and with the various courts’ takes on valuation methodology, Daubert and the art of presentation, and policy concerns. Read more >>

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 >>