• Litigation Consulting - QuickRead Top Story

    Calculating Personal Damages

    A Review of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Pfeifer Decision For those interested in working in the personal damages area, a review of the U.S. Supreme Courts’ Pfeifer decision is essential. It provides a great outline as to what the courts expect from an expert’s work. This article reviews the Pfeifer decision and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ Culver II decision, which expands on the definitions for discounting methods approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.   The field of litigation support provides a wide range of options for accounting and financial experts to work. Opportunities abound for work in the…

  • Healthcare - QuickRead Top Story

    SCOTUS Rejects Chevron Deference

    Healthcare Industry and Valuation Implications On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a seismic decision in which it explicitly overruled “Chevron deference,” limiting the ability of federal agencies to rely on their own interpretation of the laws they administer. This 6-3 ruling is expected to significantly impact the heavily regulated healthcare industry. The authors share their thoughts on how this decision may impact the healthcare industry and valuations. Chevron deference is a legal test established in the 1984 Supreme Court case, Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.[1] In this case, the Court ruled that when…

  • QuickPress - Valuation/Appraisal

    Supreme Court Upholds 40 Percent Valuation Misstatement Penalty

    The U.S. Supreme court recently upheld the 40 percent penalty in gross valuation misstatement when the partnerships involved were determined to be shams with no economic substance and as such, the partners’ outside basis in the partnership was zero.  The unanimous decision, written by Justice Scalia, resolved a split among the circuit courts as to whether the penalty applied.  The Fifth Circuit Court, where the case originated, and the Ninth Circuit held that the penalty did not apply when the transaction had been disregarded on the grounds of economic substance.  The ruling also settled a disagreement among the courts as…

  • Case Law - QuickPress

    A Federal Appeals Court is Scheduled to Hear Arguments Today Over When Software is Patentable —Wall Street Journal, Seeking Alpha

    “It’s a Huge Case for the Patent-Law Community.” On One Side: Google, Facebook, Intuit.  On the Other? IBM. “Because the patents are often unclear, there’s no way to know whether an infringement claim by a competitor or a troll is legitimate until you’ve spent $8 million in litigation fees,” said Mr. Schruers Ashby Jones in the Wall Street Journal  reports this morning that a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., will hear arguments Friday over a fundamental question that has vexed the technology industry for nearly two decades: When is a piece of software patentable?