Uwe Wystup is a practitioner in the field of foreign exchange options, as well as a senior academic, trainer, and judge. He is the founder of MathFinance, a consulting and software company specialising in quantitative finance and risk management and providing expert witness services.

I didn’t intend to become an Expert Witness! 

In 2003, I’d set up my own financial consulting firm offering capital market products, valuation, trading, and pricing. One day, I got a call from somebody who needed guidance on a settlement negotiation between a newspaper, a rating firm, and a bank. They needed somebody to negotiate between the parties. I got involved and I was able to help settle the long-term fight.

I thought it was a one-time event. But two years later, a law firm in London asked me to act as an Expert Witness. I’d not heard the term before, but the issue was exactly my field. I thought I’d see what they had to say, and learn about being an Expert Witness as a part of the conversation.

Over the years, I got more and more such calls, until I decided to make Expert Witness work part of my business offering.

For me, every day is different.

I get new cases, new things to think about, and new problems to solve. It keeps my mind fresh. Most of the cases come to me once the damage has already been done. By the time I get involved, there's already a huge pile of documentation. And of course, I have to read all that. Luckily, it’s actually very interesting. I feel like I’m reading a crime thriller every day.

I get a lot of different types of clients.

I’ve worked with clients from Australia, Canada, London, as well as the rest of Europe, and the Philippines and Indonesia. I enjoy working with international teams and being exposed to a variety of topics, which I wouldn't get if I worked as an employee in a big firm.

There are times when I'm dealing with three cases in one day.

Recently, I had a court hearing in another town in Germany in the morning. In the afternoon, I was back in my office in Frankfurt to write a report and continue writing a report for another case, which was due that evening. Later that night, I had a long conversation with our legal team in Canada, where I'm working as an Expert on a tax law case.

Alongside my Expert Witness work, I'm a professor at a university and a judge at the commercial court in Frankfurt and the financial court in the state of Hessen.

Juggling it all is just a typical day!

The types of cases I work on have varied over the years.

The Foreign Exchange derivatives market is my field of expertise. Any time a crash happens in the market, it can cause big losses or forced closure of portfolios and clients. Investors lose a lot of money, and that’s where I’m called in.

My team and I can go back and calculate what happened on any given day — not just at the end of the day, but also within the day, at a specific time, in a specific time zone, determine exactly when the crash happened and how to get the market data for that. We can do valuations and generate quantitative reports to quantify the damage.

It's very interesting work and I like to get involved, because we’ve already built up the software, the machinery, and the data access. We can turn around reports very quickly.

New opportunities come up all the time.

In Germany, for example, there is a huge issue around private health insurance fees right now. When the fees are raised in the private health insurance sector, sometimes the insured person files a claim against the insurance company.

I’m brought on board to recalculate and help decide whether it was justified to have the fee raised at all and secondly, if it was justified, whether the amount is correct.

A really memorable case I worked on was regarding a $8 billion claim.

The case was about the forced closure of a portfolio of very complex financial instruments. I remember it well because of the size of the claim and because it took three years to work on the report, the supplementary report and the joint expert statements. There was a 45-day trial in London, which was spread over one quarter.

Typically, in Germany, for claim sizes like that, there is a tribunal. There are three judges, and then the court also has additional experts to explain the backgrounds and help the judges make their decisions.

But in this case, there was only one judge in charge — and he didn't understand the topic. It was very unfortunate for the parties involved: while it's not about life and death, it’s about a lot of money.

Most of my cases settle out of court, but I’m asked to give evidence in court a few times each year.

My advice for being cross examined: keep calm, because it can get very personal and emotional. Barristers want to prove that the expert is not qualified or is conflicted. To go through that takes experience and a calm mind not to overreact. I trained as a pilot and practice the techniques to stay calm in emergencies when I’m being cross examined!

Nobody is born an expert.

In my view, the best time to become an Expert Witness is at a later part of your career, when you are already an expert in your field. It's very important to have practical experience to come up with a really credible expert report. The really qualified expert is the one with really good, practical exposure.