Fixed Income Securities and Derivatives

Valuation of Illiquid Municipal Bonds
For an internal investigation on behalf of a large mutual fund complex, Cornerstone Research was retained to assess the fund management company’s historical fair-value pricing of illiquid municipal bonds.
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Mortgage-Backed Securities and Collateralized Debt Obligations
Cornerstone Research staff and finance experts bring extensive expertise to the analysis and valuation of these structured debt instruments and their derivatives. We have deep knowledge of the market dynamics, information sources, and derivatives pricing methods relevant to valuing these instruments.
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“Economic Equivalence” of Reference Obligations in a CLO
Defense counsel for a major bank retained Cornerstone Research in a case arising from a synthetic collateralized loan obligation (CLO) transaction between the bank and the plaintiff, a hedge fund.
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Securities Class Action Regarding Bond Mutual Fund Performance
Defense counsel for a major nationwide broker-dealer retained a Cornerstone Research expert to analyze factors that led to the decline in late 2007 and early 2008 of the net asset value (NAV) of a proprietary ultrashort bond mutual fund.
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Excessive Risk: Corporate and Municipal Bond Funds
Cornerstone Research supported three experts in addressing plaintiffs’ claims that the funds took excessive risks by investing in a range of allegedly volatile securities and derivatives.
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CDO Collateral Management Agreement
Cornerstone Research analyzed an investor bank’s claims of improper practices by the CDO collateral manager, which allegedly led to investor losses during the financial crisis.
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Securities Class Action Involving Corporate Bond Event Studies
Cornerstone Research supported a finance expert to rebut claims that a company’s bond prices were artificially inflated.
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Rebuttal of Bond Market Efficiency
Defense counsel retained Cornerstone Research to analyze market efficiency issues in this Rule 10b-5 class action regarding purchases of a company’s common stock and eleven publicly traded bonds.
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SEC Proceeding Regarding Municipal Debt Offering
For an SEC investigation into a municipal debt offering, defense counsel retained Cornerstone Research and an expert to perform an event study analysis of the bond’s pricing data.
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Auction Rate Securities (ARS)
Our work in numerous ARS matters includes cases brought by issuers and investors against investment banks that served as underwriters and broker-dealers for ARS. We have supported testifying experts in analyzing market liquidity, investor demand, and claimed damages.
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Variable Rate Demand Obligations
In a FINRA arbitration, Cornerstone Research supported an expert who successfully rebutted the damages claims by an issuer of tax-exempt variable rate demand obligations.
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Securitized Mortgage Defaults
In cases arising from the credit crisis, Cornerstone Research has worked with finance experts to analyze the factors driving defaults on securitized mortgages.
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Municipal Bond Default and Bankruptcy
Cornerstone Research analyzed empirical evidence and academic literature to estimate the likelihood of default and bankruptcy of municipal issuers and entities.
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Regulatory and Civil Matters
Cornerstone Research has worked on a number of matters involving allegations of market manipulation or collusion in U.S. and international financial markets, including those relating to fixed income securities, interest rate derivatives, credit default swaps, and foreign exchange.
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European Commission Enquiry of Credit Default Swaps Market
Defense counsel for two major investment banks separately retained Cornerstone Research in a European Commission regulatory investigation into allegations of anticompetitive behavior in the trading of credit default swaps.
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