Summary

The judge found that the forensic accounting expert’s approach of forming an opinion as to the value of the Company, then carrying out a detailed calculation and only if it matches his initial opinion accepting it, undermined the credibility and reliability of his opinion as to the value of the Company.

Learning points

• If you have made errors in your report, seek to address them as soon as possible with a supplemental report, clearly explaining why the errors were made and the impact they had on your opinion.

• The court may view errors of calculation less severally than errors of principle, especially if they are addressed promptly and effectively.

• However, multiple, or clearly careless, errors of calculation are likely to undermine the court’s confidence in your expert opinions, even if the errors were made in reports from earlier in the process which are now largely redundant.  

• The court is likely to approach with caution any figure that is not supported by a calculation which the court can scrutinise.

• When conducting valuation calculations, avoid forming a view as to the likely outcome of those calculations before you have made them. The purpose of the calculation is to determine an outcome, not validate an hypothesis.

• If you choose to reconsider the validity of your assumptions once you have performed the initial calculations, it is important to do so without being influenced by their outcome on the calculation.

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