Allie Schwartz

Allie Schwartz specializes in the valuation of securities and financial derivatives in the context of securities litigation, bankruptcy, and regulatory disputes. She also works extensively on issues affecting financial institutions, such as addressing allegations of anticompetitive behavior, insider and disruptive trading, hedging, and risk management.

Dr. Schwartz has more than fifteen years of experience supporting experts through multiple stages of litigation, such as deposition, domestic and international arbitration, and trial. She has also provided support on a variety of regulatory inquiries, including analyzing complex data and presenting findings to enforcement staff.

Securities class actions

Dr. Schwartz has worked on numerous cases involving class certification and merits issues, such as loss causation and assessment of damages. These matters have involved domestic securities such as common stock and corporate bonds, as well as mortgage-backed securities (MBS), and international American depositary receipts (ADRs), among others. Dr. Schwartz has worked on notable securities class actions, such as In re Qualcomm Inc. Securities Litigation; In re January 2021 Short Squeeze Trading Litigation (the Robinhood meme stock matter); IBEW Local 90 Pension Fund et al. v. Deutsche Bank AG et al.; and In re BP p.l.c. Securities Litigation (May 2014 and June 2016 rulings).

Valuation, M&A, and bankruptcy

Dr. Schwartz coheads Cornerstone Research’s valuation, M&A, and bankruptcy practice. She has provided litigation support on matters involving valuation of assets and financial instruments in the context of bankruptcy litigation. She has also addressed issues related to solvency and capital adequacy in the context of alleged fraudulent transfers, and determination of cramdown rates.

Regulatory investigations

Dr. Schwartz has worked on numerous matters involving investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DOJ), and the New York Attorney General (NYAG), as well as internal and other regulatory investigations and resulting litigation. On these matters, Dr. Schwartz has addressed allegations of market and benchmark manipulation, spoofing and laddering, insider trading, suitability of investment, and alleged Ponzi schemes, among others.

Financial institutions

In matters related to financial institutions, Dr. Schwartz has conducted valuation analyses of various financial derivatives, and assessed transaction costs and issues related to hedging and risk management practices. She has extensive experience in analyzing alleged anticompetitive behavior by rate-setting banks in major financial markets. Dr. Schwartz’s experience covers a variety of products, notably credit default swaps (CDS), fixed income (such as corporate, municipal, sovereign and treasury bonds, interest rate swaps, and forward rate agreements [FRAs]), FX, equity derivatives, commodities, and structured products (such as RMBS, CMBS, and CDOs). On these matters, Dr. Schwartz has worked with investment and commercial banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, private equity firms, and FinTech entities, among others.

Dr. Schwartz has given presentations on the potential impact of COVID-19 on securities and bankruptcy matters; her coauthored articles on these topics have appeared in Law360. She has also published research on institutional trading and earnings announcements in the Journal of Financial Economics.

Before joining Cornerstone Research, Dr. Schwartz worked as an equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs & Co.