Lori Benson has more than twenty years of experience with Cornerstone Research, preparing strategy and expert testimony in all aspects of litigation, including trials, arbitrations, settlements, and regulatory inquiries. Ms. Benson is a former head of the firm’s New York office. She has served on Cornerstone Research’s board of directors, as well as the firm’s executive and operating policy committees.
Securities
Ms. Benson has consulted on a broad range of securities cases and has analyzed the impact of news on stock price, valuation, liquidity, volatility, and trading behavior. She has addressed:
- Securities class actions and opt-out cases in the United States and Canada involving common shares, American depositary receipts (ADR), bonds, derivative instruments, and structured securities
- Chinese reverse mergers
- Research analyst conflicts of interest
- Securities and Exchange Commission clawback cases
- Market manipulation claims
- Insider trading claims
She has worked on shareholder class actions involving Enron, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi, and Williams, along with In re Initial Public Offering Securities Litigation.
Valuation and bankruptcy
Ms. Benson has performed valuations of companies and assets in a wide range of industries. She has applied her valuation expertise in the context of mergers and acquisitions, contract disputes, and trademark infringement. She has valued intangibles such as brands, licensing rights, and trademarks. Her bankruptcy analyses have included fraudulent conveyance, corporate governance, reasonably equivalent value, creditor claims against firms under bankruptcy protection, and deepening insolvency.
Fixed income, structured finance, and derivatives
Ms. Benson has worked on cases involving municipal bonds, asset-backed securities, residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS), guaranteed investment contracts (GIC), auction rate securities, repurchase agreements, treasuries, and corporate debt. She has valued portfolios of derivatives, including commodities, and foreign exchange and interest rate swaps; as well as collateralized debt swaps (CDSs) and obligations (CDOs). She has assessed trading strategies, risk management, disclosure issues, International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) contracts, and market conditions. Ms. Benson has also analyzed the appropriateness of margin calls, along with securities lending and financing arrangements.
Financial institutions, hedge funds, and asset management
Ms. Benson has worked on cases involving banks, hedge funds, insurers, broker-dealers insurers, mutual funds, and asset management firms. Ms. Benson has evaluated: fees charged, suitability of investments, disclosure requirements, portfolio performance, and lending practices.
Accounting issues
She has worked on a number of cases involving complex accounting issues. Ms. Benson has addressed auditor liability during the occurrence of fraud at a company, recasting stock price based on restated financial statements, assessing market reliance on financial statements, analyzing damages to auditors, and assessing corporate controls.
Prior to joining Cornerstone Research, Ms. Benson was a management consultant in the financial institutions practice of Booz Allen Hamilton. She was also an analyst within Citibank’s global trade finance group, where she evaluated internal exposure to cross-border risk.
Ms. Benson is a member of the Pocantico Hills School Foundation.
