International Arbitration and Litigation

René M. Stulz

Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics,
Director, Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics,
Fisher College of Business,
The Ohio State University

Gary J. Levin

Former Risk and Financial Advisory Partner,
Forensic Practice,
Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP

Gary Levin is an accounting and auditing expert with over four decades of experience in financial statement audits, litigation and disputes, corporate investigations, and consulting. Mr. Levin is a certified public accountant (CPA) whose expertise includes matters involving U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and U.S. Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS). He has submitted expert reports on various issues and testified in numerous depositions, trials, and arbitrations.

In litigation and other disputes, Mr. Levin has been retained as an expert witness to address accounting irregularities, accountant liability, damages, and due diligence issues. He has provided expert testimony in matters involving revenue recognition, percentage of completion accounting, the value of inventory and associated reserves, intangible assets, goodwill, stock options, and accounting for subsequent events, among others.

In addition, Mr. Levin has consulted on accounting and audit arbitrations in over 150 purchase price disputes, addressing accounting treatment and disputes related to working capital and earn-out provisions. In these matters, he has often served as arbitrator or mediator. Mr. Levin has also conducted forensic investigations focused on alleged asset misappropriation, channel stuffing, manipulation of accounting records, insider trading, and executive and corporate fraud.

For fifteen years, Mr. Levin led Deloitte’s Litigation and Dispute Practice and served as a financial advisory services partner in the firm. Previously, he was an audit partner at Arthur Andersen and Deloitte, leading over 500 audits of private and public companies and serving in the audit practice for almost twenty-five years. Mr. Levin’s industry expertise includes automotive, broadcasting, manufacturing, professional services, retail, and wholesale distribution.

Sveta Ksenofontova

Senior Economist

Sveta Ksenofontova specializes in financial analysis, valuation, and damages assessments in complex business litigation and international arbitration. Ms. Ksenofontova has extensive experience as an expert witness in international arbitration venues. She has provided testimony, including under cross examination, in the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). She has submitted numerous expert reports under ICSID, PCA, ICC, and Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution rules.

Ms. Ksenofontova has worked on multiple investor-state and commercial arbitration disputes, consulting on issues related to economic feasibility, market conditions, corporate governance, and quantum of damages in a variety of contexts. Her industry expertise includes commodities (agricultural, certain chemicals, paper and packaging, oilfield services), consumer goods, energy, engineering and construction, industrials (multi-industry, heavy machinery, auto and auto suppliers, aerospace and defense, waste), infrastructure (toll roads, airports), media, mining, real estate, and transportation (airlines, rail, and road).

Ms. Ksenofontova’s experience includes:

Investor-state treaties

• As a Tribunal-appointed expert, testified and provided an expert opinion, financial analysis, and expert consultation regarding the valuation of a major international container port in LCIA proceedings in DP World and Doraleh v. Djibouti.
• Provided an expert opinion and testified at the PCA hearing in Al-Tuwairqi v. Pakistan. Assessed economic feasibility of a steel producer given its cost structure and position on the global and regional cost curves. Quantified the value of damages arising from an alleged breach of investment treaty by the state. Acted for the respondent.
• Provided an expert opinion and testimony on quantifying losses involving a tobacco distributor in an ICSID case, Gustavo Maeso Lando v. Venezuela. Acted for the respondent.

Commercial arbitration

• In a shareholder international arbitration dispute under ICC rules, provided an expert opinion and testified before the Tribunal on the merits of a third-party expert’s enterprise valuation of a media company. In the final court ruling, all claims by Ms. Ksenofontova’s client were granted in full, and all claims of the opposing side were rejected in full.
• Served as testifying expert witness for the claimant in a Baltics arbitration dispute in a multibillion-dollar valuation involving multiple retail and real estate business valuations. Ksenofontova’s valuation matched the contemporaneous internal valuation prepared by the respondent’s board of directors, which was discovered during a later document production stage.
• Prepared expert reports on damages in a sports matter alleging media piracy in the Arabian Gulf.

Before joining Cornerstone Research, Ms. Ksenofontova worked on valuation and damages matters at economics and management consulting firms, where she supported clients involved in international arbitration and investor-state disputes. Previously, she spent nearly two decades as a portfolio manager, equity analyst, and fixed income and derivatives trader at leading asset managers and global investment banks.