Recent rulings from the Delaware Supreme Court make it seem as if the discounted cash flow analysis has lost its top ranking among valuation methodologies in statutory appraisals involving publicly traded companies. Not exactly. Read more >>

It’s written in stone that experts developing a reasonable royalty for a multicomponent product must be careful to apportion damages to the product’s protected features. However, there is flexibility in how experts perform the apportionment, the Federal Circuit recently confirmed. Read more >>

Twice, in 2017, the Delaware Supreme Court struck down statutory appraisal rulings by the Delaware Court of Chancery that dismissed the importance of the market price. Read more >>

Causation presents one of the most vexing problems for damages experts. But ignoring causation and simply working off the assumption that it exists may end up being the biggest problem for an expert. Read more >>

A recent case shows just how difficult it is to value a startup. Here, there was an extra challenge because the subject was a pharmaceutical venture that required years of funding for the development of two drugs working toward FDA approval. The trial court needed to determine the fair value of the plaintiff’s interest prior to the company’s ultimate success. Read more >>

The 8th Circuit recently upheld a sizable damages award in an unusual business tort case litigated under Nebraska law. One noteworthy aspect in terms of determining economic damages was that the court allowed expert testimony regarding the loss of value to the plaintiff even though the plaintiff did not fail completely upon the wrongdoing. Read more >>

When, in a Mississippi accounting malpractice case, the trial court used an outside "technical advisor" to determine the admissibility of the parties’ proposed expert testimony, the Daubert hearing assumed a whole other dimension. It was no longer simply a battle between the opposing experts, but an occasion for outside experts to judge the work of the parties’ experts. Read more >>

The plaintiff is the “prevailing party,” a Minnesota district court recently decided, allowing the minority owner of a well-known family business to sell her share for over $40 million. The valuation trial featured high-caliber experts who disagreed about every input and assumption underlying their discounted cash flow analyses. Read more >>

We recently reported on a case in which annotated expert draft reports were subject to discovery notwithstanding Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(4). Valuation professionals who frequently work on federal cases also need to know that Rule 26 does not protect expert notes and nonattorney communication, as an important 11th Circuit ruling explains. Read more >>

The 11th Circuit recently affirmed a four-year-old Tax Court valuation of a revocable trust’s interest in a limited partnership. The linchpin in the valuation was the marketability discount. Read more >>

A new book not only gives judges and attorneys a reference guide of fundamental business valuation concepts, but it's also a refresher course for valuation experts, and it will help them prepare for court. Read more >>

Missouri's governor recently signed into law a bill in favor of adopting the Daubert standard applicable to the admissibility of expert testimony. The move by the governor apparently is the first in several major tort reform measures he hopes to accomplish during his term. Read more >>

What do you think of this method a valuation expert and forensic accountant uses for allocating goodwill between its enterprise and personal components? Read more >>

In adjudicating a New Jersey family dispute that escalated into an oppressed shareholder action, the trial court recently found the oppressing shareholder had created a situation that mandated the application of a discount for marketability (DLOM) in order to achieve a “fair and equitable” outcome. Read more >>

Appraisers working on litigated disputes face special challenges. Several workshops at the recent AICPA conference in Nashville provided insights and survival tips that benefit both the seasoned financial expert witness and the upstart. 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 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 >>