Business Valuation & Forensic Accounting Expert Witness, Arbitrator, & Advisor

He has over 30 years of experience, with nearly 25 years of Big Four public accounting and international consulting firm experience. His expert work includes jury and bench trials, mediations, and arbitrations (e.g., LCAI, ICC, SCC, AAA, JAMS, FINRA, and ad hoc). Previously, he served as one of the leaders of Duff & Phelps’ post-M&A dispute practice, KPMG’s acquisition agreement vetting services practice, KPMG’s post-acquisition dispute practice and Deloitte’s Eastern Great Lakes valuation practice.

He is co-author of the “Managing Post-Merger & Acquisition Purchase Price Disputes” chapter in the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Alternative Dispute Resolution Handbook for Business Lawyers and the “Internal Corporate Investigations” chapter in the ABA’s Guide for In-House Counsel. In addition, he is national chair of the Dispute Resolution Committee of the Business Law Section of the ABA and a past national president of the Forensic Expert Witness Association. He was selected to appear in Who’s Who Legal: Consulting Experts 2019 – Financial Advisory and Valuation: Quantum of Damages and Who’s Who Legal: International Arbitration 2011 – Commercial Experts; and received the Forensic Expert Witness Association’s 2019 National Meritorious Service Award.

John has lectured on valuation, financial analysis, and forensic accounting topics to various professional groups, including the ABA, American Society of Appraisers, Association of Insolvency & Reorganization Advisors, Chicago Bar Association, and DailyDAC-Financial Poise. Also, he served as an accounting, finance, and auditing adjunct professor at both the University of Pittsburgh and Point Park University, as a national exam question writer for both the Uniform CPA Exam and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants’ Accredited in Business Valuation Exam, and as a member of the ABA Business Law Section’s Merger & Acquisitions Committee, Revised Model Asset Purchase Agreement Task Force.

Examples of John’s professional experience include:

• Retrospective appraisal of the fair market value, on an enterprise level basis, of a national outpatient healthcare centers company, at the time of its recapitalization.
• Forensic financial, GAAP accounting, and business valuation analyses regarding assertions by a landlord government agency pertaining to a divestiture transaction by an oil products subsidiary of a public company.
• Neutral-party appointed business appraiser regarding the proposed buyout of equity interests in two closely held, E-liquid vapor for E-cigarettes companies.
• Expert regarding post-closing accounting purchase price adjustment working capital calculations in the cross-border acquisition of a foreign oil exploration company.
• Valuation expert related to the forensic accounting investigation of private equity portfolio management of a foreign dairy products company.
• Appraised the reorganization fair market value of the enterprise of a distressed public oil and gas company planning to exit bankruptcy as a private company.
• Evaluated seller’s assertions that “but for” undetected embezzlements, its specialty food products company would have been profitable, and determined whether the actual selling price of the capital stock of the private company to a buyer was below fair market value.
• Quantified disgorgement damages regarding the value of equity interests in a new securities trading firm received by a former executive of another company who took trade secrets from his former employer to the new company.
• Quantified benefit-of-the-bargain business valuation damages for an acquiring private equity fund that asserted that the target storage tank leasing company’s representation of its largest customer was false at the time of acquisition.
• Evaluated the assertion by a plaintiff commodity trading firm that failure of the defendant customer to pay in full for purchased metals product caused the destruction of the value of the entire business.
• Quantified lost profits damages for breach of a contract to purchase a required number of products from a high-technology electronic component supplier pursuant to a “take or pay” agreement.
• Investigated alleged alter-ego, unity of interest, and lack of corporate separateness assertions involving a parent company, intermediate holding company, affiliates, and an acquired subsidiary of an oil company.
• Neutral arbitrator, pursuant to a US bankruptcy court order, to appraise the fair market value of the business enterprise of a statewide off-track betting services and operations company.
• Neutral arbitrator, ancillary to a civil litigation court case, to quantify the contractual earn-out contingent additional purchase price amount in the acquisition of a national parking garage company.