Litigation Support

Litigation Support

C.P. Schumann has extensive expertise as a forensic and expert witness in matters involving business interruption, including fire, hurricanes, or other natural disasters. Commercial business owners need to be concerned with more than just rebuilding their physical property. Because we are experienced in helping businesses and companies prepare for insurance claims, we have prepared a document titled Business Interruption Insurance that covers the concerns that all owners will be faced with in their need to plan for lost profits, operating expenses, and extra expenses that they will be faced with while restoring their operations.

In the San Antonio area, the State of Texas, and across the nation, valuators are being called more frequently to support matters of litigation between adverse parties and to assist in the resolution of various business disputes. For example, in San Antonio, a business valuation was required to support litigation because the plaintiff claimed damages resulting from a loss of business in connection with a contractual dispute.

In another litigation case, a post-merger dispute arose and the defendant claimed the corporation was not willing and able to pay under the terms of the contract because the seller was determined to be guilty of fraud, which caused the business value to decline. Thus, a business valuation before and after the date of the fraud conviction was required.

These cases and many others require valuation analysts to determine a valuation and then be prepared to defend it in court. In other cases, the business valuator may serve as a mediator or special master in a dispute resolution matter.

Compensatory damage cases often involve the issues of lost profits, breach of contract or wrongful death. The valuator may be required to value the business prior to the event occurring and then after the occurrence of the event. The difference in the two calculations is generally the damages resulting from the event.

Sometimes a business interruption from fire, water, or other damage creates an insurance claim under a business liability policy. Loss of income from damages to inventory and equipment may be discovered from an analysis of these assets in the normal operating cycle. If profits have been affected by the reduction in equipment or inventory, then a business valuation, which includes a forecast of “what if” these assets were not impaired, would be effective to document a claim for either an insured or an insurance company.

We have experience with the following financial applications and models:

Read our article published in Valuation Strategies Magazine regarding Monte Carlo Simulation.

C.P Schumann, P.C. has prior litigation support experience in the following areas: