Expert Witness Blog

In EFFECTIVE VALUATION & LITIGATION SUPPORT IN CORPORATE SECURITIES LAWSUITS, forensic accounting expert witness Richard M. Squar, CPA, CVA, ABV, CFF, MBA-Taxation, writes:

Okay, let’s face it. There are always important concerns for the board of directors of any company, public or private. Today you, Director, and the board and company are served a lawsuit from dissenting shareholders. The lawsuit asserts the shareholders’ right to appraisal and alleges that the directors did not meet their duties of care and loyalty to the corporation and shareholders you serve. Substantial damages are being claimed due to alleged corporate securities fraud.

Great. And you thought this was going to be a nice, warm, bright Orange County day! Do you lose your appetite, kiss and hug your spouse, and call your therapist? Of course. When the company’s legal counsel tells you not to worry, do you continue to worry? Of course. Do you go to the special board meeting with corporate legal counsel and begin dealing with the matter head-on? Of course you do. You’re a director!

In Construction Process Can Lead to Defects, construction expert witness Michael S. Poles, GC, CM, RCI, DABFET, ACFE, writes on the complex process involved in a building project:

Building Materials Before building materials can be used in any building, they are first run through a highly complex, and extensive engineering, testing, and review process. This review process is usually conducted by a vast number of independent testing laboratories and the results are reviewed by many professional committees, such as the American Society for Testing and Materials, (A.S.T.M.) and the International Conference of Building Officials, (I.C.B.O.).

Reports of the testing results and the Professional Societies’ findings are published and updated regularly. These reports, often referred to as A.S.T.M. Standards, I.C.B.O. Reports, and Uniform Building Code Standards, state the minimum recommended standards for the use of the materials.

In Challenges in Recovering Deleted Email computers expert witness Steve Burgess writes:

There are three main types of email in common usage – Microsoft Outlook (often paired with a Microsoft Exchange Server), text-based email client programs, and web-based email, or webmail.

In Microsoft Outlook, all emails are kept in one large, encrypted, non-text file – the PST, or Personal Folders file. Outlook has additional functions and additional content as well. There is an integrated address book, multiple mailboxes, a calendar, and a scheduler, all of which are contained within the PST file. When one looks into a PST file with a file editor or word processing application, there is little or nothing intelligible to the human eye. The file content looks like nearly random characters.

Patents expert witnesses may testify on computer patents, design patents, international patents and licensing, and related matters. On patentdamages.com, attorneys Chris Marchese and Justin Barnes comment on “the fast moving world of patent damages.” Sign up for their blog here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/PatentDamages.

In Construction Process Can Lead to Defects, construction expert witness Michael S. Poles, GC, CM, RCI, DABFET, ACFE, writes on the complex process involved in a building project:

Cost vs. Profit The pursuit of lower costs can become a powerful driving factor, which all too often leads to construction defects, especially during a recession such as the current recession that the construction industry has faced throughout the past four years. These highly competitive elements are forcing contractors into resorting to the widespread practice of using semiskilled, and, most often, unskilled labor to perform skilled labor tasks. These skilled labor tasks in the past have always required extensive training, certification, and years of experience.

In addition to this widespread and growing practice of the utilization of questionably skilled labor, supervision is also waning. All too often, semiskilled and even unskilled crews are left to their own devices to perform their work on the job site without proper supervision or even without any supervision at all.