Financial Litigation

Financial markets are being increasingly scrutinized amid global financial crises, strict regulation, legal challenges, and highly volatile stock markets. Nathan Associates’ experts analyze a wide range of financial matters by applying finance and economic theory. Our expertise includes statistics, financial engineering, accounting, and valuation. We team with academic affiliates from top universities to provide consulting services and expert testimony in specialized areas such as

• Evaluating fraud-on-the-market allegations under Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
• Analyzing allegations related to market conduct, such as insider trading and other types of market manipulations
• Studying pension fund investment returns in connection with Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) claims
• Examining pension fund, mutual fund, and hedge fund risk taking, market timing, and investment suitability
• Assessing the merit of excessive fee claims by examining fund trading behavior and investment styles
• Investigating backdating of employee stock options (ESO)
• Analyzing class certification issues
• Managing bankruptcy workouts
• Determining the adequacy of risk assessments and due diligence
• Evaluating equity lending and short selling claims
• Investigating Ponzi schemes and other accounting fraud, and related investor damage claims
• Analyzing damage claims in connection with real estate and mortgage-backed securities in professional malpractice matters.

Nathan Associates’ financial experts have direct experience with the institutions and organizations that manage and regulate the U.S. financial system and enforce financial laws and regulations, including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), NASDAQ, the FDIC, the U.S. Department of Justice, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, and federal and state bankruptcy courts.

Securities Class Actions

Our experts have broad experience with a variety of matters in securities litigation class action cases, including
Evaluation of materiality and loss causation analysis

• Damage calculations
• Analysis of trading behavior
• Examination of market timing
• Assessment of class certification requirements.

Valuation

In various types of financial litigation matters, we assist clients with the valuation of complex financial instruments and assets, including

• Options
• Asset-backed securities
• Credit default swaps
• Inverse floaters
• Other derivatives
• Distressed assets.

Pension Fund, Mutual Fund, and Hedge Fund Disputes

Intensified scrutiny of pension funds, mutual funds, and hedge funds has been triggered by their enormous growth and allegations of fraudulent activities such as insider trading, investors being misled on trading strategies, and other conflicts of interest between investors and funds, fund families, and brokers. Nathan Associates’ securities experts study a variety of issues:

• Performance evaluation and risk assessment
• Potential conflicts of interest arising from the simultaneous management of mutual funds and hedge funds
• Effects of hidden fund activities
• Advisory fees in open-end mutual funds
• Multiple share classes of mutual funds
• Cross-subsidization within a fund family
• Misuse of confidential trading strategies
• Appropriateness of fund disclosure
• Assessment of the uniqueness of a fund strategy.