LightLab Imaging, Inc. v. Axsun Technologies, Inc., 2014 Mass. LEXIS 585 (July 28, 2014) Readers may remember the Manpower case in which the 7th Circuit struck down the trial court’s decision to exclude expert testimony based on what it considered questionable data underlying the expert’s generally accepted methodology. A recent state appellate decision in a  Continue Reading »

Ward v. Ward, 2014 W.Va. LEXIS 128 (Feb. 14, 2014) In a divorce case, the husband appealed to the state’s highest court, arguing that the lower courts accepted a valuation of his business interest that did not reflect the company as it was on the valuation date. Rather, he said, the valuation was set by  Continue Reading »

Hamelink v. Hamelink, 2014 Minn. App. Unpub. LEXIS 1175 (Dec. 30, 2013) Since Bernier v. Bernier, a Massachusetts divorce case in which the state’s highest court required that a valuation for equitable distribution purposes use a hybrid tax-affecting model to account for an S corporation owner’s personal taxes on company profits, few marriage-dissolution decisions have  Continue Reading »

Marcus v. Quattrocchi, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19041 (Feb. 4, 2014) In an estate and trust case featuring a major real estate family, the plaintiff beneficiaries retained two experts to prove damages resulting from the alleged improper depletion of trust assets by way of an investment company in which the defendants had a stake. In  Continue Reading »

Hardenbrook v. United Parcel Service, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 15830 (Feb. 7, 2014) In an involved retaliation suit against UPS, which the employee won, one of the flash points was the calculation of lost future benefits, specifically the question of what the applicable discount rate was to compute the present value of the company’s  Continue Reading »

Hill v. Hill, 2014 Tex. App. LEXIS 292 (Jan. 9, 2014) What happens to the commercial goodwill of a big accounting firm when a principal gets divorced? In a recent Texas appeals case, the wife accused the trial court of failing to account for commercial goodwill in valuing the subject interest by relying on a  Continue Reading »

Even when a case ostensibly is not about valuation, valuation issues often play a pivotal role, and failure to provide a valuation may undermine a party’s claim. This is one of the lessons gleaned from a Delaware shareholder suit that moved from the Delaware Court of Chancery to the state’s Supreme Court on a novel  Continue Reading »

Just as film critics predict that a movie they see today will be a contender in next year’s Oscar race, we venture to say that the Tax Court’s recent Estate of Richmond opinion will be one of the most important valuation decisions of 2014. It deals with a number of hot topics: dividend capitalization versus  Continue Reading »

Huff Fund Investment Partnership v. CKx, Inc., 2013 Del. Ch. LEXIS 262 (Oct. 31, 2013) It’s no secret that the Delaware Court of Chancery has a strong liking for the discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis in fair value determinations. For this reason, a decision in which the court expressly rejected the DCF method in favor  Continue Reading »

When it comes to methodology, stick to the tried and true. This is the takeaway from a recent intellectual property case involving a patent related to a dual-flush valve mechanism in toilets. An experienced appraiser tinkered with the royalty base and royalty rate formulas—and saw his damages calculation go down the drain. Per-unit royalty The  Continue Reading »