Merle Erickson is an accounting and tax expert. Professor Erickson has extensive testifying experience in high-profile cases. Several courts have recognized him as an expert in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and Tax Accounting. Professor Erickson has been qualified as an expert in U.S. Tax Court, U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, the Federal Court of Claims, U.S. District Courts, and the Delaware Court of Chancery. He has also testified in several arbitrations.
Professor Erickson’s work has involved numerous technical GAAP issues associated with a variety of issues. He has evaluated both tax issues and GAAP accounting and disclosure requirements associated with financing transactions, structured transactions, mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures, employee stock options, and restatements. He has addressed debt versus equity issues and the nature of, and proper accounting for, various financial instruments.
Professor Erickson’s prior testimony has also addressed the value and use of tax assets such as net operating losses, and the role of taxes in the measurement of damages. He has worked on accounting malpractice cases relating to tax and GAAP accounting issues. Professor Erickson’s expert work also includes various forensic accounting analyses of financial accounting and tax accounting records, and the intersection of those sets of accounting documents.
Professor Erickson has served as an expert witness for government bodies, including the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), as well as for financial institutions, accounting firms, law firms, industrial companies, and individual taxpayers. In addition, he has assisted clients with IRS, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and whistleblower investigations.
Representative cases include:
- Tribune Media v. Commissioner of the IRS
- Freedman v. Weatherford International Ltd. et al.
- Selectica Inc. v. Versata Enterprises Inc. et al.
Among other publications, Professor Erickson coauthored the textbook Taxes & Business Strategy, currently in its sixth edition. He teaches executive education courses on topics such as valuation, investment strategies, and various aspects of mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. He is the Director of the Executive Education Program on Mergers and Acquisitions at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
Prior to entering academia, Professor Erickson served as a consultant in a variety of business disputes on issues relating to lost profits, damages, valuation, and accounting fraud. He has been a certified public accountant (CPA) for more than thirty years.
