Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Andrea L. Eisfeldt
Laurence D. and Lori W. Fink Endowed Chair in Finance,
Professor of Finance,
UCLA Anderson School of Management,
University of California, Los Angeles
Andrea Eisfeldt is an expert on financial markets. Professor Eisfeldt’s research has focused on macroeconomics and finance, including research on market liquidity, the role of intangibles in asset pricing, bank valuation, and over-the-counter markets.
Professor Eisfeldt has been retained as an expert witness in numerous finance matters, analyzing a range of issues that include portfolio analysis, valuation, economic damages, asset pricing, investment strategies, fixed income and derivatives, mortgage finance and mortgage-backed securities (MBS), hedge funds, and LIBOR. On Section 10b and Section 14a securities class actions, she has addressed issues at the class certification and merits stages, including loss causation and damages.
In her recent academic work, Professor Eisfeldt has researched a range of topics, including the effects of Generative AI on the value of firms, the return on complex trading strategies, over-the-counter derivatives prices and trading, bank valuation, and credit risk. She has published articles in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Monetary Economics, Econometrica, and the Review of Financial Studies. Her research has twice been awarded the Amundi Smith Breeden Prize by the Journal of Finance. Professor Eisfeldt was a finalist for the Jensen Prize in the Journal of Financial Economics.
Professor Eisfeldt holds editorial roles at leading academic journals. At the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), she is a research associate in the programs for asset pricing, corporate finance, and economic fluctuations and growth. Professor Eisfeldt is a member of the board of directors of the UCLA Investment Company, which manages part of the University’s endowment. She has also served on the board of the American Finance Association, as a member of the investments, ethics, and strategic planning committees.
Professor Eisfeldt teaches courses on derivatives, international finance, corporate finance, FinTech and cryptocurrency, and macro finance. Previously, she served for a decade as a tenured professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
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.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Jules H. van Binsbergen
The Nippon Life Professor in Finance,
Professor of Finance,
The Wharton School,
University of Pennsylvania
Jules van Binsbergen is a corporate finance expert who specializes in issues related to asset pricing, institutional investors, and investments. Professor van Binsbergen analyzes a range of topics arising in mutual funds and pension plans, as well as asset allocation; risk evaluation; capital structure; dividend pricing; environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing; and determinants of the cost of debt.
In his recent research, Professor van Binsbergen measured the organization, skill, and performance of asset managers in the mutual fund industry. He has published several articles measuring the skill of active managers and appropriate benchmarks for performance comparison. He has collaborated on machine learning models that construct a statistically optimal benchmark for firms’ earnings forecasts. In addition, Professor van Binsbergen has analyzed the effectiveness of monetary policy, discount rates, and stock return predictability.
Professor van Binsbergen has published award-winning articles in leading academic journals, such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the American Economic Review, and the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance. He has coauthored book chapters on asset pricing and liability, the impact of regulations on pension plans, and decision-making in investment management.
Professor van Binsbergen is an associate editor at the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Financial Economics. He is a former editor of the Review of Finance. He also serves as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a research fellow at the U.K.’s Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
For more than a decade, Professor van Binsbergen has taught courses in corporate finance, econometrics, and financial markets. He has received multiple teaching honors, including successive recognitions for excellence and rigor in teaching the Wharton School’s M.B.A. core curriculum.
Before joining the Wharton School, Professor van Binsbergen served on the faculty at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and taught at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Our extensive network includes top experts from academia and industry.
Lynnette Kelly
Former President and CEO,
Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB)
A recognized expert on municipal finance and governance, Lynnette Kelly has more than thirty years of legal, regulatory, governance, and technology experience in the fixed income markets.
Ms. Kelly’s expertise covers a range of municipal finance topics, including infrastructure finance, broker-dealer regulation, disclosures and investor protections, pricing and issuance of municipal debt, market practices, and FinTech. She has extensive experience with issues involving the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB). Ms. Kelly has testified before Congress about market regulation and policies, and submitted written testimony to congressional committees.
Ms. Kelly has served on multiple boards of directors. In these roles, she has developed substantial expertise with ESG issues, FinTech, and regulatory and external audits and investigations. She holds Directorship Certification from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and is an NACD Governance Fellow.
Ms. Kelly served as president and CEO of the MSRB for over a decade. In that role, she developed strategic initiatives to respond to Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, and to advance the MSRB’s mission as the principal regulator of the municipal securities market. In particular, Ms. Kelly launched the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website, the official source of trade data and disclosure documents for the municipal securities market.
Prior to her tenure at the MSRB, Ms. Kelly served as senior vice president and associate general counsel at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). At both the MSRB and SIFMA, she worked on issues involving banks, broker-dealers, investment advisors, and other participants in the municipal market. Earlier in her career, Ms. Kelly served as general counsel of the Municipal Assistance Corporation for the City of New York.
Ms. Kelly has written articles for business and academic publications, and also serves as contributing editor to the Municipal Finance Journal. She speaks frequently at industry, business, and academic conferences and has been a guest lecturer at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. A variety of mainstream media outlets have cited her as an expert. Ms. Kelly has received several honors for her industry contributions, including the Municipal Forum of New York’s Public Service Award for leadership in the municipal market.
Ms. Kelly serves on the board of trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation, which oversees the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). She was also a member of the audit committee of Common Securitization Solutions, a FinTech joint venture of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Ms. Kelly’s other board experience includes the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets Excellence and Equity in Public Finance Advisory Council, and the University of Chicago Center for Municipal Finance.
She has completed executive education programs at Harvard Business School; The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Financial Instruments and Markets
Cornerstone Research conducts detailed analyses in a range of trading practice and market manipulation matters. We work with clients on high-profile market manipulation and microstructure litigation and regulatory matters. Our external and internal experts are equipped with academic expertise and practical experience across a range of markets and large datasets.
Global markets for foreign exchange continue to grow and diversify into more currencies, transactions, and participants. Investors who trade currencies can choose among several methods of execution, each with specific costs and benefits.
Cornerstone Research staff and affiliated experts have an in-depth understanding of the complexities of foreign exchange markets. We have studied the determinants of transaction costs, including the different execution methods available to investors.
Cornerstone Research staff has experience working on various aspects of high-frequency and low-latency trading, performing forensic reconstructions of market turmoil and malfunction.
Our work in this area has included:
- Analysis of a hedge fund’s high-frequency trading algorithms, responding to an SEC investigation into market manipulation;
- Reconstruction of how market malfunctions caused potential harm to incoming orders;
- Analysis of the dissemination of market data by the New York Stock Exchange, resulting in a settlement with the SEC; and
- Work on trade secrets cases involving alleged theft of high-frequency trading algorithms.
We have consulted with clients on internal and regulatory investigations and supported expert testimony on a number of matters involving hedge funds. Our experience spans a range of areas, including hedge fund matters related to valuation, risk management, disclosure, insider trading, market manipulation, subscriptions and redemptions, Ponzi schemes, and fund fees.
Cornerstone Research’s expertise spans a range of structured finance issues associated with the recent wave of mortgage-related litigation. We have worked extensively on the valuation and analysis of complex debt instruments, such as asset-backed securities (ABS), residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), collateralized debt obligations (CDO), and credit default swaps (CDS).
These instruments can be challenging to value due to relatively low liquidity and price transparency. Their values depend on a multitude of factors, including credit risk, interest rate sensitivity, optionality of collateral, and priority of payments. We overcome these valuation challenges using our knowledge of derivatives pricing methods, market dynamics, and relevant information sources.
We have:
- Evaluated all aspects of the RMBS process: mortgage origination, appraisal, loan-level modeling, loan sampling, due diligence practices, disclosures, pooling, underwriting, and insuring
- Analyzed losses associated with subprime portfolios and assessed damages
- Addressed loss causation and damages, and issues related to accounting, reporting, and auditing in securities litigation
- Analyzed industry- and company-specific causes of a subprime lender’s bankruptcy
The FinTech landscape continues to evolve, with new and continuing litigation related to consumer financial services platform innovation, the economics of cryptotokens, features of a blockchain, and allegedly disruptive cryptocurrency trading practices.
Financial Institutions
Working with leading experts in the field, we have analyzed a range of complex strategic, financial, and valuation issues for general and limited partners, acquisition targets, banks, and other parties.
We have:
- Analyzed deals that failed to consummate, including allegations of material adverse changes, specific performance issues, and failure to secure financing, among other claims
- Assessed the capital structure of private investments
- Examined performance incentives for managers and pricing structures for investors
- Analyzed private equity and venture capital fund inflows and outflows, and the relationship between those flows and performance
- Assessed the materiality of specific information to investors and performed valuation analyses
- Addressed due diligence practices in a private equity environment
- Evaluated the fairness of consideration provided to stakeholders
Our staff have consulted on more than fifty cases involving distressed financial institutions. We have also published studies on FDIC lawsuits targeting the directors and officers of failed financial institutions.
Risk-based pricing techniques and the exponential growth of securitization markets contributed to a substantial expansion in consumer credit over the twenty years preceding the credit crisis. The aftermath of the crisis has included a fundamental change in lending practices. In addition, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been investigating potential violations by financial services firms and nonbanks such as debt collectors.
Cornerstone Research has analyzed complex economic, financial, and strategic issues in disputes that have involved many of the largest providers of consumer finance products. Our staff and affiliated academic and industry experts have:
- Addressed pricing, competition, securitization, and business models in the credit card industry
- Provided consulting and expert testimony on behalf of credit card banks and their directors and officers, nonbank private-label issuers, and professional advisors
- Analyzed consumer behavior and repayment expectations on behalf of a major issuer that changed the terms of credit card agreements, and assessed the regulatory and economic factors pertinent to the change
- Estimated potential damages for banks that faced class actions alleging improper overdraft fees on debit cards
Cornerstone Research has experience in litigation and regulatory investigations related to banks and securities firms, including many of the largest cases.
Our experience includes a variety of matters involving investment advisory firms and their core offerings—mutual funds, collective trusts, and institutional separate accounts.
Cornerstone Research has worked on cases involving nearly every type of insurance product, including life, health, property and casualty, mortgage, fixed and variable annuities, and reinsurance.
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 results.
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