Case Studies

FAILED SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION

This matter involves a dispute between a leading television and internet seller of jewelry and a software company.

Accumyn was asked to review and opine on the damages suffered by the jewelry seller as a result of the failed software implementation.  Accumyn determined the jewelry seller’s out-of-pocket costs and extra-expenses incurred as a result of failed software implementation. This included payments to the software company, as well to the other third-party vendors. This involved a determination of the value of the benefit received, if any, for each of these payments. Accumyn also determined the internal labor costs incurred by the jewelry seller in order to ameliorate the damage from the failed software implementation.

The assignment also involved the preparation of five lost profit models to determine the damages suffered by the jewelry seller as a result of various delays in obtaining functionalities that had been promised by the software company. Five additional lost profit models were prepared to determine the damages suffered by the jewelry seller as a result of internal projects that were also delayed as a result of the failed software implementation. These analyses involved determination of the expected incremental profits the jewelry seller would have experienced, if not for these delay periods.

Scott Bayley provided two expert reports and trial testimony in support of his opinions.

Breach of Fiduciary Duty & Breach of Contract

Litigation Support- Lawsuit involving breach of fiduciary duty by asset manager for a large domestic asset management firm

Assisted expert in providing expert testimony and calculated damages to pension plan. Work involved review of manager adherence to policies and procedures, fair and equitable treatment of clients, asset pricing, duty to inform, adherence to client’s written investment policy statement, prudence in portfolio management, and portfolio diversification. Additional work involved reconstructing thousands of transactions and developing proprietary software to analyze data.

Aided and Abetted Fraud for a Multinational Bank

Assisted various experts retained by the Italian government in connection with its claim that a multinational bank had knowingly participated with insiders to defraud the company and its investors by structuring transactions as equity rather than debt, contributing to the largest bankruptcy in European history and referred to as the “Enron of Europe.”

Work included an analysis of five complex financing transactions structured by the bank to avoid debt recognition by the Italian food and dairy giant.  The financing transactions involved the use of special purpose entities (“SPEs”); receivable securitization programs; tax-structured financings; “put” and operating agreements for unwinding; speculative derivative transactions designed by Citigroup to operate as short-term loans without reporting the  obligation; and related financial statement disclosures.

Funds Tracing of Former Leading Energy Company

Accumyn’s expert investigated and analyzed the flow of funds between a series of companies holding the ownership interests in an electrical power plant supplying one of the largest cooperatives in the United States. The Accumyn team assessed the profitability and the economic and financial implications of the ownership structure which included off-balance sheet holdings of one of the world’s former leading energy companies.   Accumyn also traced profits and cash flows between entities in light of financing arrangements, option agreements and a buy-out option. Throughout the multi-stage litigation and FERC proceedings, Accumyn prepared a valuation of a power purchase agreement, financial analysis of solvency of parties to the agreement, assessment of various acquisition and disposition options based on historical financial performance of plant and holding entities and modeling to assess provisions to cure the alleged breach of contract.