| Counsel for leading automobile manufacturers such as General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, Honda, Volkswagen, Daimler/Mercedes Benz, and others turn to Cornerstone Research for economic and financial analysis in all phases of commercial litigation and regulatory proceedings. We have also worked on matters involving parts suppliers, dealers, insurers, and transportation service providers. | Clients rely on our deep knowledge of industry economics, marketing, finance, and capital markets, as well as our experience in competition, consumer, product liability, securities, and other matters. |
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Ashley Langer
Associate Professor of Economics,
Eller College of Management,
University of Arizona
Ashley Langer is an econometrics, energy, and industrial organization expert. Professor Langer applies sophisticated empirical methods to study regulation, competition, and firm and consumer behavior. She analyzes a range of economic issues, including those involving energy markets, transportation, and the environment. Professor Langer has testified on issues related to class certification and economic damages, including in such high-profile class actions as Guzman et al. v. Polaris Inc. et al. and Garcia et al. v. Volkswagen Group of America Inc. et al.
Professor Langer has analyzed consumer decisions, including those related to the automotive and oil industries. She has evaluated decisions on which vehicles to drive, how preferences form, when and where to purchase fuel, and whether to adopt electric vehicles. She has also investigated the impact of consumer demographic group preferences on vehicle pricing.
In her recent research, Professor Langer has assessed energy and environmental policy design issues. For example, she has analyzed international oil markets and the factors that influence pricing, as well as how Clean Air Act regulatory enforcement affects pollution levels and firms’ investment decisions. Further, she has studied the impact of energy policy on durable goods such as automobiles and residential solar. In particular, Professor Langer has examined how households respond to solar subsidies that change over time, how uncertainty surrounding policy enforcement affects coal power plant retirement and upgrade decisions, and how taxing vehicle mileage (rather than fuel consumption) changes Highway Trust Fund revenues. Her earlier work includes assessing the effect of congestion tolling on urban land use.
Professor Langer’s research has been published in leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Lexology Index (formerly Who’s Who Legal) has named Professor Langer a Future Leader among global competition experts and has also recommended her as a leading competition economist and consulting expert.
At the University of Arizona, Professor Langer teaches courses in business strategy, empirical research methods, environmental economics, energy and environmental policy, and government regulation. She has been honored with several teaching and advising awards. In addition, Professor Langer presents on industrial organization and empirical research methods, as well as transportation, energy, and environmental topics, at professional conferences and universities in the United States and internationally.
Professor Langer previously taught at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She was a visiting scholar at Columbia Business School and the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Dominique M. Hanssens
Distinguished Research Professor of Marketing,
UCLA Anderson School of Management,
University of California, Los Angeles;
Senior Advisor, Cornerstone Research
Dominique Hanssens is an expert in competitive and strategic issues in marketing. His academic research focuses on the impact of marketing on business performance, to which he applies his expertise in data-analytic methods such as econometrics and time-series analysis. He also researches consumers’ purchase decisions, advertising, distribution, and retailer behavior.
Professor Hanssens has been retained as an expert in numerous high-profile matters and has extensive experience in product liability, intellectual property, antitrust, and breach of contract cases involving marketing or statistics. He has substantial experience in class actions and has also served in many cases as a damages expert. His approach combines quantitative marketing science techniques with rigorous, market-based analysis of consumer behavior. Professor Hanssens has also conducted and critiqued consumer surveys. He has consulted to companies across a range of industries, including Agilent Technologies, British Telecom, Charles Schwab, Disney, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Mattel, Microsoft, and Wells Fargo.
Professor Hanssens publishes extensively and has served as an editor for leading academic journals in marketing. Five of his articles have won Best Paper awards, in Marketing Science, the Journal of Marketing Research, and the Journal of Marketing; ten of his articles were award finalists.
Among his numerous honors, Professor Hanssens has received the Buck Weaver Award from the INFORMS Society, which honors rigor and relevance in marketing science. The American Marketing Association has recognized him twice, with the Gilbert A. Churchill Award for lifetime achievement in the academic study of marketing research, and the Vijay Mahajan Award for career contributions to marketing strategy research. At UCLA Anderson, he received the Neidorf “Decade” Teaching Award for significant and sustained leadership.
Professor Hanssens has taught marketing management, quantitative research and analysis, strategy, policy, and international marketing courses in the M.B.A., Ph.D., and executive M.B.A. programs at UCLA. He has also served as executive director of the Marketing Science Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Amy P. Hutton
Professor of Business Administration,
Carroll School of Management,
Boston College
Amy Hutton is an expert in securities, financial statement analysis, corporate governance, and business valuation. Her research focuses on corporate disclosure, capital market accounting, and the role of financial intermediaries in capital markets.
Professor Hutton testifies and consults on class certification, price impact, damages, and financial accounting issues in a variety of litigation and regulatory investigation matters. She has assessed questions of valuation, solvency, and factors contributing to financial distress in the context of corporate bankruptcy.
As a result of her research, Professor Hutton was named to the Congressional Review Board, opining on the Security Industry Association’s “best practices for equity research.” She won the American Accounting Association’s inaugural Distinguished Contribution to Accounting Literature Award for her co-authored article “Causes and Consequences of Earnings Management: An Analysis of Firms Subject to Enforcement Actions by the SEC.”
Professor Hutton was an editor for the Accounting Review and continues to serve as a referee for several leading peer-reviewed accounting and finance journals. She has held faculty appointments at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and Harvard Business School.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Mark J. Garmaise
Professor of Finance,
UCLA Anderson School of Management,
University of California, Los Angeles
Mark Garmaise is a corporate finance expert who specializes in topics related to banking, entrepreneurship, financial contracting, real estate, and securities. Professor Garmaise has testified in high-profile cases involving breach of contract, valuation, and damages. In Rule 10b-5 securities class actions and related opt-out matters, he has provided expert testimony on class certification and merits issues, including market efficiency, price impact, loss causation, and damages.
His industry experience includes FinTech, cryptocurrency, entertainment, financial services, investment banking, automotive, and microfinance. Professor Garmaise has also consulted with a U.S. bank on refining its residential mortgage delinquency model.
Professor Garmaise analyzes a range of complex issues affecting real estate markets, entrepreneurial firms, venture capital, and private equity. He has published papers on mortgage terms, the performance of small business lenders, and the effects of financial constraints on entrepreneurs. His research has appeared in peer-reviewed publications such as the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Finance, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
An award-winning instructor with more than two decades of experience, Professor Garmaise teaches MBA and executive courses on corporate finance, venture capital, and private equity (including investment strategies such as the use of special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs). He is a former senior associate dean of the MBA program at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Previously, Professor Garmaise served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Economics Capabilities
We have provided consulting and testifying expert support in major product liability cases in the automotive industry. We have experience addressing economic, marketing, and consumer behavior issues in matters involving alleged vehicle safety defects as well as false advertising claims. In addition to our experience in automobile cases, we have provided expert analyses in multiple matters involving all-terrain vehicles, recreational vehicles, and heavy-duty trucks.
Our in-depth knowledge of the industry’s structure, distribution channels, and pricing models—as well as issues related to new automotive technologies—informs our use of sophisticated economic and marketing tools. This expertise enables us to evaluate a variety of consumer claims, including overpayment or diminished resale value, and effectively rebut opposing arguments and proposed methodologies.
We work on cases filed in both federal and state courts, as well as government investigations. Our support extends through all phases of litigation, including class certification, merit inquiries, and Daubert motions. We also assist clients with settlement analyses.
In addition, our experts have experience with consumer finance issues, including cases involving automotive loan terms, securitization, and discrimination.
Cornerstone Research consults to clients in the automotive and transportation sectors on litigation matters related to alleged price fixing, tying, price discrimination, and other areas. We also have experience with regulatory reviews of proposed mergers. Our extensive experience working with automotive clients and our deep understanding of the relevant industry data sources allow us to effectively and efficiently address the economic issues in these matters.
A central question in consumer class actions is whether, or to what extent, prices would be different absent an alleged defect or misrepresentation. Our expertise with key automotive databases and knowledge of academic and industry research enables us to analyze market outcomes and identify the economic factors that drive supply and demand in the automotive and transportation sectors.
During class certification, our experts focus on the extent of heterogeneity in transaction prices among consumers, and evaluate whether proposed methods can reliably estimate impact and damages on a classwide basis. In addition, we test whether the alleged defects or misrepresentations caused an economic loss.
We employ a variety of marketing research techniques and consumer behavior analyses, including surveys, conjoint surveys, and content analysis, to examine the factors that impact purchasing behavior and decisions in automotive matters.
For example, our experts conduct surveys to assess whether consumers were exposed to alleged misrepresentations, and how their perceptions and decisions may have been affected either by such exposure or by disclosure of allegedly omitted information. Our experts also often evaluate surveys conducted by opposing parties and have demonstrated design and execution flaws that led to inflated or unreliable results. We also examine third-party data, such as surveys commissioned by original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), industry studies, and product reviews to corroborate any findings regarding consumer purchasing behavior.
We have extensive expertise with conjoint surveys, which are often proposed or conducted by class action plaintiffs seeking to estimate alleged damages in automotive cases. In several automotive cases, our experts successfully rebutted Plaintiffs’ conjoint surveys, demonstrating that such methodologies were not suitable for measuring damages on a class-wide basis.
Our marketing experts are often called upon to analyze advertising or other public media content to understand consumers’ exposure to allegedly false advertising, as well as the potential impact of advertising on consumer purchase decisions.
Finance Capabilities
Cornerstone Research consults to clients in the automotive and transportation sectors on matters related to securities fraud allegations, bankruptcy proceedings, corporate transactions, and consumer finance. To address the economic issues raised in these complex cases, our experts bring specialized knowledge of financial markets and instruments, valuation techniques, and accounting practices.
Cornerstone Research and our affiliated experts have decades of experience in securities fraud class actions and regulatory investigations, both for OEM clients and other companies in the automotive sector. Such cases frequently arise when investors, regulators, or pension fund participants allege misrepresentations or omissions in disclosures. We have also worked on matters involving financial shortfalls and securities market price fluctuations that allegedly stem from consumer fraud and product liability claims.
Cornerstone Research and our affiliated experts have decades of experience in securities fraud class actions and regulatory investigations, both for OEM clients and other companies in the automotive sector. Such cases frequently arise when investors, regulators, or pension fund participants allege misrepresentations or omissions in disclosures. We have also worked on matters involving financial shortfalls and securities market price fluctuations that allegedly stem from consumer fraud and product liability claims.
We combine our expertise in equity, debt, and derivative securities with knowledge of auto industry accounting and reporting conventions. We have worked extensively with counsel in preparing and responding to motions related to dismissal, class certification, merits, summary judgment, and Daubert challenges.
Cornerstone Research staff and experts possess a multifaceted understanding of the market structure issues that foreign and multinational automotive firms face, particularly those whose securities trade in the United States. We have assessed market efficiency, security price impact, economic materiality, and damages in these contexts.
Cornerstone Research brings expertise in valuation, financing, and executive or insider compensation to cases arising from buyouts, mergers and acquisitions, attempted takeovers, and other corporate transactions.
Company and asset valuations play vital roles in bankruptcy, financial distress, solvency, and restructuring disputes. In these matters, our experts have analyzed relevant economic drivers of performance and their implications for firm or asset value. In corporate transaction disputes, we have assessed financing options, security trading dynamics, and market microstructure issues.
Featured Cases
Selected Professionals
Our staff consultants contribute expertise in economics, finance, accounting, and marketing, as well as business acumen, familiarity with the litigation process, and a commitment to provide outstanding support.
Featured Publications
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