Navigating Bias in Business Valuations Valuation analysts are tasked with gathering information, analyzing data, summarizing findings, and communicating the results. This includes quantifying the expected cash flows and risks of the business through often conflicting and misrepresented information. This article provides an overview of bias, how it affects business valuations, and provides readers with the s ...

Refreshing Our Vision for Our Work Appraisal is one of the oldest and most universal human habits. Humans have been appraising since the beginning of time. Appraisal is also a uniquely human habit requiring a spectrum of skills and thought processes that are not found in nature or machines. While often impugned for being faulty and having a variety of biases, our ability to “appraise,” assess, form judgment ...

Tied Into Business Valuation This article provides readers with current information that emphasizes how the brain works. Understanding how the brain works and factors that may affect it positively or negatively may impact conclusions and factors that find their way into a business valuation. There are potential biases and/or blind spots. The author is not a neuroscientist but shares neuroscientific knowledg ...

In Financial Projections (Part I of II) This is a two-part article that considers the review and assessment of prospective financial information. Specifically, this discussion describes the behavioral bias that may influence financial projections. This discussion should inform any party involved in compiling or assessing financial projections. This discussion is particularly relevant for fiduciaries who may ...

As the temperature drops and the holidays creep in, case after case either settles or, even better, is granted a three-month continuance. Now you finally have the time to take a long hard look at the lessons you have learned this year, lessons you have applied from years past, and start defining next year’s conquest(s), whatever they may be. This fourth article of the Unimpeachable Neutrality series discuss ...

Practical Applications in Unimpeachable Neutrality Expert witnesses in the fields of forensic accounting, matrimonial litigation, and business valuation must possess a thorough understanding of the applicable standards, case law, evidentiary rules, and regulations specific to each engagement to effectively help the court understand the facts and evidence. The already daunting task of interpreting these rule ...

A Decision that Illustrates the Importance of Appraiser Independence To successfully work in the field of business valuation, appraisers must perform assignments with impartiality, objectivity, and independence, and without consideration of personal interests or the interests of those who hired them. Should such bias be found, the appraisal could be considered worthless and the expert’s reputation damaged, ...

Is Recognizing Cognitive and Motivational Biases Enough? The National Academy of Sciences reported that bias is a severe problem in forensic sciences. Cognitive biases were described as, “common features of decision making, and they cannot be willed away.” Is recognizing bias, alone, sufficient to address cognitive, motivational or other biases? What can a forensic expert do to avoid the bias trap? In this ...

Zach Epstein shares the scoop at BGR:  Samsung has accused Apple of calling expert witnesses that exhibit “slavish adoration” to the company during an ongoing patent trial between the two consumer electronics giants. As noted by patent expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, court documents filed by Samsung in California seek to exclude testimony made by a number of Apple’s expert witnesses on the grounds t ...