Litigation Support
While we don’t spend a great deal of time testifying at trial, we prepare every report to withstand the closest judicial scrutiny. When a matter can’t be mediated or settled, we stand ready to defend our work product as expert witnesses.
- We have served as court appointed-experts, and we have testified on behalf of the Federal Government.
- Civil matters have taken us to Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Kansas, Missouri, Oregon and California.
- Our experience runs the gamut, from matrimonial (see Anzalone v Anzalone – PA) to corporate (Gerzoff v Coons – NY) to high-profile Tax Court cases (The Estate of Joseph H. Lauder v Commissioner).
- We were recently retained by a taxpayer’s litigation and tax counsel to value a nationally known distributor of consumer products in a matter headed to the U.S. Tax Court. Their client was able to reach a favorable settlement due, in part, to our report (i.e., our direct testimony).
- Matrimonial litigation often involves an appraisal of the working spouse’s business at the inception of the marriage. Although retrospective appraisals are anything but routine, in 2011 our team of experts successfully valued a controlling interest in a Wall Street broker-dealer as of 1991, facilitating settlement of the case.
- Our recent litigation support experience includes retention by the law firm for an insurance underwriter to value a life estate in real property.
- To defuse litigation among heirs of a $450 million supermarket empire, BCG Valuations was jointly retained by all parties to prepare an appraisal to which all would adhere.
- We assisted counsel by preparing a critique of an appraisal prepared by its existing expert. The goal was to strengthen the report and the expert’s credibility in the event of trial (the case was settled).
- We were recently retained by the legal team representing the founder and majority shareholder of a general contracting business to provide valuation services in conjunction with a hotly contested shareholder dispute involving the buyout of a minority owner. After determining the fair value of the subject shares, we defended our valuation in a series of arbitration proceedings, and provided expert advice to our client’s legal team regarding potential flaws in the opposition’s appraisal report, which determined a value that was more than 300% higher than our valuation. After several weeks of deliberation, our client was satisfied to learn that the arbitration panel had awarded the minority shareholder an amount that, after accounting for legal and professional fees, was extremely close to our fair value.