Trends in Large Corporate Bankruptcy and Financial Distress

Featured Experts

Featured Experts

Eric L. Talley

Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law,
Columbia Law School,
Columbia University

Eric Talley is an authority on corporate governance, business ethics, and the fiduciary duties of officers and directors. He consults and provides expert testimony on breach of contract matters and internal investigations, as well as corporate transactions and mergers and acquisitions. The issues he addresses include allegations of corporate opportunity appropriation, misappropriation of assets, and insider trading.

In addition, Professor Talley analyzes organizational structures, as well as issues relating to the corporate form, alter ego, limited liability, and piercing the corporate veil. He also conducts damages estimates for property and contractual losses.

He has provided testimony in U.S. district, superior, and bankruptcy courts. The venues where he has submitted testimony include the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in the United Kingdom and both U.S. and international arbitrations. Professor Talley’s consulting and expert testimony involves several industries, including banking and other financial institutions, healthcare, high technology, insurance, utilities, and life sciences.

He speaks regularly to corporate boards and regulators on issues pertaining to fiduciary duty, governance, and finance. Professor Talley is also a frequent commentator in the national media on topics related to corporate management, mergers and acquisitions, and securities. A former senior economist at the RAND Corporation, his research has been published in numerous law and economics journals. Professor Talley also coedited the volume Experimental Law and Economics on human behavior and its interaction with legal and regulatory environments.

Featured Experts

Stuart C. Gilson

Steven R. Fenster Professor of Business Administration,
Harvard Business School,
Harvard University

Stuart Gilson is an expert in corporate restructuring and valuation. He has deep expertise in bankruptcy and financial distress issues, credit and financial statement analysis, and corporate transactions—including business valuation in M&A settings.

Professor Gilson has provided expert testimony in numerous matters, including multiple trials. He has addressed such topics as corporate restructuring; asset and business valuation; M&A; solvency; fraudulent conveyance; and substantive consolidation. He has consulted on solvency and valuation issues in a variety of industries, such as education, energy (including alternative energy), finance, healthcare, insurance, retail, technology, and transportation.

Professor Gilson’s research and consulting focus on the operational, financial, and legal strategies that companies use to revitalize their business, improve performance, and create value. He is the author of the book Creating Value through Corporate Restructuring: Case Studies in Bankruptcies, Buyouts, and Breakups, which he developed from a class he has taught for the last twenty years in Harvard’s M.B.A. curriculum.

Professor Gilson has written more than seventy Harvard Business School case studies and teaching notes used in business schools throughout the world. He has also taught extensively in Harvard Business School’s Executive Education programs and received multiple academic research and teaching awards. Turnarounds and Workouts magazine has recognized Professor Gilson as one of the top ten outstanding bankruptcy academics.

Professor Gilson’s research is published in leading academic and practitioner journals and cited by national news media. His work has received several honors, including the prestigious Graham and Dodd Award from the CFA Institute. He was an associate editor of Financial Management and the Journal of Corporate Finance.

Professor Gilson has also served on the advisory and corporate boards of several for-profit and nonprofit organizations and has provided expert advice on bankruptcy law reform in the U.S. and internationally.

Featured Experts

Lynnette Kelly

Former President and CEO,
Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB)

A recognized expert on municipal finance and governance, Lynnette Kelly has more than thirty years of legal, regulatory, governance, and technology experience in the fixed income markets.

Ms. Kelly’s expertise covers a range of municipal finance topics, including infrastructure finance, broker-dealer regulation, disclosures and investor protections, pricing and issuance of municipal debt, market practices, and FinTech. She has extensive experience with issues involving the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board (MSRB). Ms. Kelly has testified before Congress about market regulation and policies, and submitted written testimony to congressional committees.

Ms. Kelly has served on multiple boards of directors. In these roles, she has developed substantial expertise with ESG issues, FinTech, and regulatory and external audits and investigations. She holds Directorship Certification from the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and is an NACD Governance Fellow.

Ms. Kelly served as president and CEO of the MSRB for over a decade. In that role, she developed strategic initiatives to respond to Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation, and to advance the MSRB’s mission as the principal regulator of the municipal securities market. In particular, Ms. Kelly launched the Electronic Municipal Market Access (EMMA) website, the official source of trade data and disclosure documents for the municipal securities market.

Prior to her tenure at the MSRB, Ms. Kelly served as senior vice president and associate general counsel at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA). At both the MSRB and SIFMA, she worked on issues involving banks, broker-dealers, investment advisors, and other participants in the municipal market. Earlier in her career, Ms. Kelly served as general counsel of the Municipal Assistance Corporation for the City of New York.

Ms. Kelly has written articles for business and academic publications, and also serves as contributing editor to the Municipal Finance Journal. She speaks frequently at industry, business, and academic conferences and has been a guest lecturer at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. A variety of mainstream media outlets have cited her as an expert. Ms. Kelly has received several honors for her industry contributions, including the Municipal Forum of New York’s Public Service Award for leadership in the municipal market.

Ms. Kelly serves on the board of trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation, which oversees the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). She was also a member of the audit committee of Common Securitization Solutions, a FinTech joint venture of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Ms. Kelly’s other board experience includes the Milken Institute Center for Financial Markets Excellence and Equity in Public Finance Advisory Council, and the University of Chicago Center for Municipal Finance.

She has completed executive education programs at Harvard Business School; The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Featured Experts

Celeste C. Saravia

Vice President,
Cornerstone Research;
Lecturer,
University of California, Berkeley

Celeste Saravia coheads Cornerstone Research’s antitrust and competition practice. Dr. Saravia provides economic and statistical consulting, analysis, and expert testimony in complex business litigation. She addresses class certification, liability, and damages issues in antitrust litigation matters involving allegations of collusion, vertical restraints, and other allegedly anticompetitive behavior, as well as assessing the competitive effects of mergers.

Dr. Saravia works on matters in many industries, including life sciences (pharmaceuticals and medical devices), finance, information technology, energy, telecommunications, and media. Who’s Who Legal has recognized her multiple times as a Global Leader among competition economists. Dr. Saravia teaches economics courses at the University of California, Berkeley.

Antitrust and competition

Dr. Saravia has served as an expert in more than a dozen cases dealing with a variety of antitrust issues, including no-poach agreements, non-compete agreements, price fixing, monopolization, bundling, exclusive dealing, predatory pricing, price discrimination, and product hopping. These cases include Inline Packaging LLC v. Graphic Packaging International Inc. and Fresenius Kabi USA LLC v. Par Sterile Products LLC et al. Dr. Saravia offered trial testimony in In re HIV Antitrust Litigation, a case involving an allegedly anticompetitive reverse payment in a pharmaceutical patent settlement; and in J & M Distributing Inc. v. Hearth & Home Technologies Inc. et al., an alleged monopolization case.

Dr. Saravia has provided government agencies and parties support in all phases of merger review. She has analyzed competitive effects in prominent proposed mergers, such as Sysco/US Foods and Thoratec/Heartware. The Department of Justice (DOJ) retained Dr. Saravia to assess the competitive effects of the proposed merger between China International Marine Containers Group and Maersk Container Industry.

As a consultant, Dr. Saravia leads teams working on high-profile matters, including FTC v. Qualcomm, In re Flash Memory Antitrust Litigation, American Express Travel Related Services Company Inc. v. Visa USA Inc. et al., and Thales Avionics Inc. v. Matsushita Avionics Systems Corporation.

Energy and commodities

Dr. Saravia has developed analytical and statistical models to examine the competitiveness of deregulated electricity markets and modeled the competitive effects of a proposed merger of two electricity firms. In a matter related to an alleged monopsony by the largest purchaser of a natural resource, she provided a preliminary injunction analysis and addressed class certification, liability, and damages issues.

Intellectual property

Dr. Saravia has addressed general damages and intellectual property issues in a variety of matters. In Verizon Services Corp. et al. v. Cox Fibernet Virginia Inc. et al., she analyzed reasonable royalty rates, lost profits, and price erosion due to patent infringement. She also addressed reasonable royalty rates due to patent infringement in Brandeis University and GFA Brands Inc. v. Keebler Co. et al. Dr. Saravia analyzed class certification, liability, and damages related to a breach of contract dispute in the hospitality industry.

Dr. Saravia speaks and publishes frequently on competition issues. She won a Concurrences Antitrust Writing Award for her coauthored article, “Analyzing Incentives and Liability in ‘Hub-and-Spoke’ Conspiracies.” She has published research in Global Competition Review, including “Horizontal Merger Guidelines and Market Definition in Monopolization Cases” and “Standards for Assessing Bundled Discounts.”

Before joining Cornerstone Research, Dr. Saravia worked at the University of California Energy Institute.

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Insights

23 October 2024

2024 Technology Economics Competition (TEC) Institute Summit, Washington, DC

A gathering of industry leaders, policymakers, and experts will explore the complex interplay of technology, economics, and competition.

10 October 2024

Merger Enforcement Trends Internationally: Homegrown or US Export?

Ildikó Magyari will moderate this American Bar Association webinar focused on global developments in merger enforcement.

10 October 2024

Washington DC Women’s Forum 2024: How Women Rise

Renowned leadership expert and author Sally Helgesen will present at this networking event for professionals in the legal community.

8 October 2024

Pharma Law USA

Benjamin Fuller of Cornerstone Research will discuss the 340B drug program at this conference hosted by Informa Connect in Boston.

3 October 2024

GCR Live: Competition Litigation 2024

Anca Cojoc of Cornerstone Research will discuss the role of economic evidence in collective action trials at this annual conference in London.

2 October 2024

Rising Costs from High Inflation and Interest Rates Contribute to a Continued Increase in Large Corporate Bankruptcy Filings through the First Half of 2024

Filings in the services, manufacturing, finance, insurance, and real estate industries contribute to year-over-year increase.

2 October 2024

United States v. Brewbaker

Appeals judge reached a precedent-setting decision in this antitrust case.

1 October 2024

Gautam Gowrisankaran and Kostis Hatzitaskos Receive 2024 Antitrust Enforcement Award

The American Antitrust Institute has honored Gowrisankaran and Hatzitaskos for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Economics.

26 September 2024

Cornerstone Research Promotes Fourteen to Principal

The firm advanced senior staff to principal across multiple practices and industries.

26 September 2024

Global Antitrust Hot Topics: EU, US & Global Perspectives

Elisa Mariscal will discuss “New Theories of Behavioural Harm: No Poach, AI, Product Denigration, Purchasing Cartels” at this Brussels conference h...

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