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

He has over 30 years of experience, with 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 post-acquisition dispute practice and its agreement vetting services 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, “Internal Corporate Investigations” chapter in ABA’s Guide for In-House Counsel, and “Business Divorce” chapter in ABA’s Recent Developments in Business and Corporate Litigation, 2020 Edition. 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 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, as a member of the ABA Business Law Section’s Merger & Acquisitions Committee, Revised Model Asset Purchase Agreement Task Force and a contributing author of “MAC (Material Adverse Change) Briefs” for the M&A Jurisprudence Subcommittee.

John works across all industries. Examples of his professional experience include:

• Valuation expert regarding an independent oil exploration and production company, pertaining to a proposed acquisition transaction both prior to and also during a pandemic plus an oil price war.
• Financial and forensic accounting expert regarding whether closing an aerospace manufacturing plant by an aircraft manufacturing company and relocating the activities, during an economic recession, to a combination of other owned plants and out-sourced subcontractors, saved costs.
• Financial and forensic accounting expert regarding evaluation of material adverse change claims asserted by a public-company buyer who terminated the acquisition of a privately-owned financial services company, and evaluation of valuation damages claims asserted by the sellers.
• Expert regarding quantification of breach of acquisition agreement accounting representations & warranties business valuation damages in an acquisition of a life sciences manufacturing company.
• 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 and GAAP accounting 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.
• 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 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 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 contractual earn-out contingent additional purchase price amount in acquisition of a national parking garage company.