Jennifer McCabe heads Cornerstone Research’s Washington, DC office and is a founding member of the firm’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Council. Ms. McCabe has over twenty-five years of experience analyzing financial and economic issues in complex civil litigation and regulatory enforcement matters. She has deep experience working with financial institutions facing regulatory investigations, consumer class actions, and commercial litigation. Her expertise spans various business lines, including retail banking products such as credit cards and other payment methods, deposit accounts, auto loans, mortgages, and insurance; and trading markets, including foreign exchange (FX), fixed income, commodities, and interest rate derivatives.
Ms. McCabe also addresses economic damages issues arising in nonfinancial sectors, notably commercial real estate, consumer goods, pharmaceutical distribution, retail, social media, professional services outsourcing, and telecommunications. She supports clients and experts through all phases of the litigation process.
Consumer finance
Ms. McCabe founded and remains a leader in Cornerstone Research’s consumer finance practice. She has worked with large U.S. national banks, regional banks, and FinTech companies. Her representative experience includes:
- Supporting consumer financial services firms facing Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) enforcement actions; assessing consumer impact from alleged unfair, deceptive, or abusive practices; presenting analyses to the CFPB; and developing remediation proposals for settlement negotiations
- Analyzing damages and consumer expectations issues in consumer class actions involving credit cards, including alleged violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA); breach of contract claims; and claims of deceptive and misleading disclosures
- Estimating damages exposure on class certification and merits issues in numerous class actions involving overdraft (OD) and insufficient funds (NSF) fee practices
- Consulting on cobranded or private-label credit card businesses in disputes between brand partners and issuing banks
- Working with banks and mortgage servicers facing allegations of improper mortgage servicing practices
- Directing analysis to calculate distribution of market timing settlement funds to U.S. mutual fund shareholders
- Working with retail banks in over a dozen Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) class actions to estimate class size and analyze related issues and providing deposition testimony during confirmatory discovery about methods and procedures used to determine class size
Market manipulation
Ms. McCabe has extensive experience addressing market manipulation and collusion claims in financial markets. Her work includes:
- Analyzing interest rate derivatives trading by a major multinational bank under investigation for possible manipulation of LIBOR and similar financial benchmarks
- Developing rebuttal arguments regarding antitrust, market manipulation, and contract claims brought in civil cases involving financial benchmarks
- Assessing FX product trading in multinational investigations alleging collusion and manipulation of FX markets
- Analyzing alleged front-running of client orders by large broker-dealers in FX and interest rate derivative markets
- Evaluating possible spoofing in gold and other commodities trading
- Assessing trading in a multimillion-dollar municipal bond investment account to determine if the account was churned
In other financial and economic matters, Ms. McCabe has wide-ranging expertise with mergers and acquisitions (M&A), valuation issues, securities litigation, venture capital and private equity, hedge funds, trade secrets, and consumer fraud and product liability claims. Her work spans various venues, including U.S. federal and state courts and the Delaware Court of Chancery. Ms. McCabe’s representative experience includes:
M&A and valuation
- Supporting an investment banking expert addressing arrangement and consummation of debt financing in the Twitter/Musk transaction
- Supporting a valuation expert in the first post-merger appraisal case of a public company to reach a decision in trial outside Delaware
- Assisting clients with valuation and corporate governance issues before the Delaware Court of Chancery, including material adverse change (MAC) clauses, poison pills, and executive compensation disputes
Securities litigation
- Analyzing Section 16b short-swing profits involving complex derivative transactions
- Addressing custom and practice in multiple Rule 10b-5 securities cases involving consumer goods manufacturers and retailers
- In a securities class action, assessing how internal valuations and marks for multibillion-dollar structured power contracts affected the financial statements of a large U.S. electric generator
- Analyzing market efficiency, loss causation, and damages in Rule 10b-5 securities cases
Venture capital and private equity
- Analyzing custom and practice issues related to the use of convertible notes as venture capital financing for early-stage companies
- Evaluating private equity investments, valuation of voting rights, and other control provisions in the shareholder agreements of a Brazilian telecommunications company
- Conducting valuation analysis on behalf of a private equity investor accused of misrepresenting the financial condition of a company it had sold
Hedge funds
- Analyzing returns on a complex structured hedge fund investment and supporting expert testimony before a FINRA arbitration panel on related damages issues
Trade secrets and economic damages
- Analyzing economic damages issues on behalf of an apparel retailer alleged to have stolen trade secrets obtained during M&A due diligence
- Consulting on a matter alleging that commercial real estate brokers stole trade secrets when switching brokerage firms
- Assessing damages incurred by a professional services outsourcing firm following the departure of a large number of senior employees
Consumer fraud and product liability
- Analyzing economic damages issues and defeating class certification in a case involving Certified Pre-Owned Volkswagen vehicles
- Analyzing class certification issues in a matter involving cloud storage
- Rebutting a conjoint survey conducted by a plaintiffs’ expert in a matter brought against a university seeking COVID-19-related tuition reimbursement
Prior to joining Cornerstone Research, Ms. McCabe spent ten years working for the Department of Commerce, investigating potential violations of U.S. and international trade law.
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